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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2983 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

it is really fair for Mrs Burke to be saying that it is all about this government-this has been going on for years. In 1995, Mrs Carnell was complaining that the federal minister, Carmen Lawrence, was not taking seriously the need for specific dementia care facilities.

Mr Cornwell has, to his credit, raised this issue a number of times in this Assembly. His motion today suggests that the Assembly note with grave concern a lack of commitment on the part of this government. I am not prepared to support that, although I have to say that I do not particularly like the government's amendment either and that is why I have added the accountability mechanism. I am glad to hear that the government is going to support that.

It is a bit of a difficult situation, because there are some fairly serious problems with Mr Cornwell's motion from my point of view. I would like to see something a bit stronger than what we have here amending Mr Corbell's amendment, but I have not had time to do another whole version. I think, by adding my amendment, I have inserted something tighter into what Mr Corbell has done.

I need to talk about why I have concerns about Mr Cornwell's motion, although I certainly agree with him that there are issues in aged care accommodation. However, Mrs Cross was saying that Mr Corbell's amendment to Mr Cornwell's motion was saying that everything was okay, but that is clearly not the case because Mr Corbell's amendment says that "This Assembly expresses its concern at the increasing difficulties older Canberrans are facing in accessing appropriate accommodation". Therefore, in the amendment to Mr Cornwell's motion, there is an acknowledgment that we have a problem. It is not correct to say that the government is totally self-congratulatory.

However, I do agree with some speakers and, as I said, I think it could be a bit stronger. I will talk about that. Mr Cornwell says, first of all, that he wants to give priority to aged care facility applications in planning policies and processes. I do not know what that means and I would not support it for that reason. He has not really explained it clearly.

I would certainly not want to see aged care being given a priority against other very needy groups in our community, whether they are concerned about people with disabilities, people with mental illnesses, affordable housing or whatever. Obviously, we have to have a broad approach to helping people in need in the ACT and so I would be very cautious about supporting this. I understand that there are ways that the government has sped up processes for applications concerning aged care facilities. That is something that is occurring but I could not support this kind of broad statement.

If, in fact, Mr Cornwell just means that the processes should be sped up by running them concurrently which is, as I understand it, what the government has done, then that is fine and it is doing that anyway. If he wanted something else, then that would be a concern to the Greens.

The second point is "be proactive by listing twelve potential sites". I have not heard a really good argument for the 12 and what analysis that is based on, so I would also

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