Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Dobell on her speech and pass on my condolences as well.

It's a well-known and sad fact that the effect of dementia on the wider Australian community has been increasing in recent years. With life expectancy improving each year as a result of better living standards and medical developments, the likelihood of being affected by this particular disease has increased accordingly. There are around half a million Australians living with dementia, a figure which is estimated to more than double over the next 30 years. It may be a surprise to some that it is the second most common cause of death—and the leading cause of death amongst women—in Australia. The disease does not receive the publicity or the recognition in Australia that many others receive.

Dementia is the single-largest cause of disability in people over the age of 65, and approximately 52 per cent of residents in residential aged care suffer with dementia. These are not just statistics, data on a page. I need to stress that these are people. These are unique individuals who have contributed to our society, who have led interesting and varied lives and who now deserve our support and our respect. They have differing needs, and the avenues taken to recognise and support them and their families need to be equally diverse and appropriately specialised. This government continues to work to meet these expanding needs.

In my electorate of Cowper, we are ranked eighth in dementia prevalence in this country. The Port Macquarie state electorate shows the third-highest prevalence of dementia in New South Wales, with numbers expected to increase to 3,500 by 2050 in Port Macquarie alone.

When I was a boy, my father used to take us on rounds. He was a doctor in a country town. As a child, I found it incredibly confronting when we would go into the rooms and speak to the elderly people with dementia. When, as a police officer for over a decade, I dealt with people who were suffering from dementia, it equally struck me that, at times, they were very much alone. It also struck me how very difficult it was for the families of those people suffering with dementia; it was as torturous for them as for the patient.

When I first came into this role, I was approached by St Agnes's Care & Lifestyle, and they showed me modelling of a dementia village based on a Netherlands model. It was village-style accommodation incorporating 12 homes with 93 residents. There would be up to seven or eight in a house, with a full-time carer in there and with street landscapes—streets and shrubs and places to stay. It would be their home—a village where they felt like they were at home. When I saw it, I said to them, 'We have to do this so that we're not seeing people put away in the twilight years of their lives but instead they're given that accommodation and amenity that we all love and all strive for.' So, this month, I was so pleased and happy to announce $6.5 million from the federal government, through the Building Better Regions Fund, towards the $27 million village to be erected by St Agnes's Care & Lifestyle. At that end, I would like to thank Adam Spencer and Bronwyn Chalker from Emmaus. This is life-changing for these people and nation-changing for Australia, because I know that this model that they're putting up will be replicated up and down all the coasts around the country and in the country and the regions. That's exactly the way we should be treating not only our older people but people with dementia.

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