Page 523 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 21 February 2012
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“geriatric”, and were aimed at ridiculing and deriding a community group based on their age. My concern is—
Mr Corbell: On a point of order, Mr Assistant Speaker, this is a report on the Older Persons Assembly—a great initiative, an initiative that has engaged a broad number of older Canberrans. It is not an opportunity for Mr Hanson to prosecute some sort of political attack on you on a matter which is completely unrelated to the conduct, the outcomes and the matters at hand in the Older Persons Assembly. He is not being relevant. The motion before the chair is to note the paper. Mr Hanson should be called to order and asked to be relevant.
MR HANSON: Mr Assistant Speaker—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, are you speaking on the point of order?
MR HANSON: On the point of order, Mr Assistant Speaker, this is about the government calling on the community to show respect for older people. The concerns that I am raising are that while the government is calling on the community to show respect for older people, a member of the government backbench has shown absolute disregard for older people and has used “geriatric” as a word to slur older people. I think it is entirely—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, I think you are starting to prosecute the argument. You put me in an invidious position at this particular time, Mr Hanson, something which I wear with some discomfort. I uphold the point of order that Mr Corbell has raised. The issue before the house is that the report be noted. That, for me, means that you are talking about the content of that report. I ask you to be relevant, otherwise I will have to ask you to resume your seat. Thank you.
MR HANSON: I will come to the point. The minister needs to recognise that actions speak louder than words and that when the government—all members of this government, frontbenchers and backbenchers—take note of this report, they do so seriously and address this not only by their words but by their actions.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (3.37): I will just speak briefly on the report. I thank the minister for tabling it today and acknowledge the members of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Ageing who are here today and who all did a fantastic job on the day mediating all the sessions. There were a lot of different views expressed; it was a fantastic job to keep that together, put it together in a report and come out with the recommendations. I would like to acknowledge the great work they did on that.
I attended most of the sessions on the day. Obviously I was not able to go into all the break-out sessions, but I went into some of them and there were some really interesting discussions had by everybody there. A really wonderful thing about this was that everyone took part in the spirit that was meant. They came, everybody contributed, and I do not think there was anyone left feeling that they had not actually played a part in what came out in this report.
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