Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to present a petition, as approved by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Petitions.

The petition read as follows—

TO THE HONOURABLE THE SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRE-SENTATIVES

This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the plight of Fernlea House which provides palliative care and support for people with a life limiting illness and their carers and, since opening in September 2005 has demonstrated the need for a service of this nature in the local area.

Fernlea House Day Hospice has had more than 1600 attendances. This equates to more than 130 carer families having benefited from the support given to them. The service is supported by 88 trained Volunteers, recruited from the local community.

We, members of the community, support this Project and want to ensure that Femlea House remains open.

We therefore ask the House to support us in requesting that the Federal Government guarantee ongoing funding for Fernlea House.

from 1,021 citizens

Petition received.

I would first of all like to say a large thankyou to Carl Robins from the Belgrave Rotary Club, who sponsored the petition, along with the Fernlea House Committee. Fernlea House came into being after Jan Lancaster donated a house to this great cause. In the 2004 election, as one of my election promises I gave a core promise to provide $800,000, simply because we had no local palliative care hospice. Sadly, in the Rudd government’s 2008-09 budget there was no additional funding for Fernlea House—and, believe it or not, they gave it only six weeks to close down, which is an absolute disgrace.

We had an outcry from the volunteers, and media identities such as Derryn Hinch got behind the plight of Fernlea House. The Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot, gave Fernlea House another 12 months. Sadly, that funding will run out in June this year. I am glad that the shadow minister for ageing, Margaret May, is sitting beside me; she has given her full support and I thank her. It is a shame that the government will not be looking after Fernlea House. Remember that these are dying and sick people in their final days. This government needs to show some compassion. I thank all those people who signed this petition. They realise how vital this issue is to the electorate of La Trobe and how vital it is to make sure that people who are in their final moments have quality of life, staying at Fernlea House, where we have fantastic volunteers doing an amazing job. I plead with the government to overturn its decision and make money available in this year’s budget.