Page 425 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 June 1989
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However, I have one substantial objection, and I ask the Assembly to turn to clause 16 on page 7. I will in due course move an amendment to this clause. We have successfully, to one degree or another, coped in recent years with discrimination - discrimination based on one's religious beliefs, one's gender and one's racial background. We have eliminated those things, at least in law, and I hope that we will eventually eliminate them in practice.
However, Mr Speaker, there is one pervasive area of discrimination which is already under scrutiny around the world, certainly in North America and Europe, and that is concerning one's age. I do not want to be speaking here merely out of a certain age cohort; I hope I am speaking for everyone present.
There is, it could be successfully argued, something innately discriminatory in eliminating people from the workplace based only on their age, but other factors are also at work. That is, I do not think anyone, just because he or she is 60 or 65, should be eliminated from a job anyway, but let us also consider some of the social factors.
I stress this because the Standing Committee on Social Policy of our Assembly is about to undertake an overall study of ageing in the ACT. I hope that our deliberations, within both the committee and the Assembly, and our eventual report will be models with a path breaking report, not only for the ACT but also for all Australians.
I obviously cannot presume to judge what our eventual conclusions might be, but I suspect that for the ACT some of the following factors will be highlighted. Firstly, the demographic structure at the moment is dramatically altering towards the more mature end of the age scale. There are more and more people in the ACT over 60, and that will increase dramatically.
Secondly, more people over 60 are remaining in the ACT - that is, our city has such an increasing appeal that those who might once have gone to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast or down to the coast are remaining here for all the splendid offerings that they have here as people in retirement or at the most mature end of their lives.
Thirdly, more people over 60 are migrating to the ACT. This is a new and extraordinary development. Once we were thought of as a society that did not have grandparents and great-grandparents. Increasingly, as people stay here, they import that particular age cohort.
Fourthly, and perhaps this is as significant as anything, more people are living longer and, even more importantly, they are in even better health, so that people in their sixties, seventies and, I hope, older are better and better able to continue to contribute to the work force. I would
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