Page 5243 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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out on a sort of per capita or equal amount to each State basis. Also, the fact is that sometimes local firms here will tender successfully for New South Wales government work, Victorian government work or Queensland government work. The no-preference agreement is a sensible policy that all State governments are a party to. We probably do better out of it than most other States, because of the enormous entree it gives us to Commonwealth government purchasing.
Society for the Physically Handicapped - Respite
Care Facility
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is to the Minister responsible for services to the disabled. I am not sure who that is, but that Minister presumably can stand up and take the question. Is the Minister aware that the Federal Minister for Health and Community Services has declined to allow the use, under the Federal Disability Services Act, of a vacant house at Hartley Court as a respite care facility? Does the Minister agree that this decision imposes a heavy burden on the ACT Society for the Physically Handicapped, which does not enjoy the economies of scale which are evident in other States? What will the Minister do to persuade his Federal colleague that this decision should, in the case of the ACT, be reversed?
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, I am aware of that problem and I actually wrote to Mr Howe about it some months ago. The Federal Government is locking into its position on that. Mr Humphries would be aware that the Federal Government has some fairly strict guidelines about use of respite facilities and use of institutional facilities. The policy is to de-institutionalise as far as possible, and the Federal Government guidelines say that respite facilities ought not to be on the same premises as institutional, long-term, permanent care; they ought to be separated. That is the stated reason for the failure to allow that building to be used for respite care. I have actually gone out and discussed this with the relevant organisation and inspected the premises. It is certainly frustrating for it, and frustrating for me, that there is a building standing there unused when there is an unmet demand for respite places.
This is a matter which, next year, will become the responsibility of the ACT Government. We may be able to take a somewhat more flexible approach to it when the disability services agreement comes into force in the early part of next year. I can see the reason behind the Commonwealth Government's policy as a general policy. If one were building a new building for a respite care facility, one would not necessarily want to put it on the same grounds as permanent accommodation. But, on the other hand, as Mr Humphries suggests, when a group with limited resources has a perfectly good building there, there may be
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