Adams Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Adams Paul: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17349] 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on Part 2 of this bill. As I was beginning to say last time when I ran out of time and the bell rang it is interesting to hear the voting record of all the parties on this particular bill. Even though there have been adverse comments against the bill most parties are supporting it. 
I think that when we are caring for the elderly we need to be well aware of the shortage of staff in rest homes. I also think that in a busy society like we have today we all tend to want things to be done instantly; yet people running rest homes and care centres for the elderly are really being totally frustrated at the present time by the Government’s inability to make a decision on things that are basically essential for those people to be able to continue running their homes. They need to employ staff for a 24-hour facility and with holiday pay amendments and all those things their costs are increasing; yet they are hamstrung by being unable to recoup those costs. 
 In rest homes that cater for the elderly there is obviously a lot of difference between one that has been established for many many years and one that has been built today. With the current costs of building a rest home and putting all the facilities into it it would be nigh impossible to be able to get one under way. That is a shame when we consider the elderly. Many of them would want the more comfortable facilities that are perhaps available today yet because of the delays in addressing the major issues that continually came through in the select committee process people just cannot do it. 
When we see The Salvation Army pull out of providing a service we know that we are dealing with a serious issue because The Salvation Army would be one organisation that would fall over backwards to try to cater for this group of people. Yet sadly we heard just recently that it is no longer able to continue with one of its services and a rest home has had to be closed down. 
The owners of one of the rest homes I visited—and rest homes of course have numerous rooms in them mostly catering for just one person per room—told me that they are now looking very closely at the viability of turning the rest home into student accommodation. That has to be a major concern for us. We have to address the concerns that the submitters have brought to us. I believe—and we have been told—that it is squarely in the Government’s quarter. It is not anything to do with this legislation; it is a Government decision. I again encourage the Government to make these decisions quickly because it is a very very important issue. 
I think that when we come into those twilight years as will happen to us all if people have the ability to pay for a better type of care then they should be free to do that. We have to look seriously at how we are dealing with these people. We have a growing sector of the population coming up here. It is an increasing market and United Future believes it is well time that the Government addressed this issue very speedily. That is all I will say on this particular clause.