Page 3312 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022

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MS CHEYNE: Madam Speaker, I will take the rest of it on notice.

Opposition members interjecting—

MADAM SPEAKER: Members! Mr Cain, you have the supplementary.

MR CAIN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Minister, why did you wait over a year since the scheme was announced to conduct an external review?

MS CHEYNE: We did not. This is absurd questioning. The pilot of the scheme was announced back in August 2020. It was formally announced that the pilot had been created in November 2020. It began soon after that. The scheme then commenced full rollout in early June and concluded in June with all the funding expended. At the time, in this place, I committed, in response to questioning and also in my ministerial statement, that we would undertake an external review, an independent review, of that. That concluded in December last year. I tabled the report, with a tabling statement, then. I have also answered questions about it since from Ms Castley and I have also circulated again the report that I have already tabled.

Ms Castley: A point of order, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER: Point of order. Resume your seat, Ms Cheyne.

Ms Castley: We are asking about ChooseCBR, not the support grants.

MADAM SPEAKER: I think the minister is talking about ChooseCBR.

MS CHEYNE: Madam Speaker, I am talking about ChooseCBR, so I do not know what the opposition has being doing or what they have not been paying attention to. We did not take a year to commission the report. The report was delivered almost a year ago.

Yerrabi electorate—seniors services

MR BRADDOCK: My question is to the Minister for Veterans and Seniors. Minister, as the population of Yerrabi continues to expand there are an increasing number of seniors there. What are the services available for seniors in my electorate?

MS DAVIDSON: I thank Mr Braddock for the question. There are quite a range of services and supports available for old people in Yerrabi. As you would have heard Minister Stephen-Smith talking about earlier this week, this budget makes investments to reduce elective surgery wait times, delivering 60,000 more electives surgeries over four years through to 2024-25. The government is also continuing and expanding the Good Life with osteoArthritis program, which is a preventative program that delays or reduces the number of people needing lower joint replacement surgery.

There are quite a number of older Canberrans who are carers, or who benefit from the care of informal or unpaid carers. One in nine Australians is providing care to an older


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