Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I am honoured to present this very large petition, with some 12,430 signatures. The petition has not yet been to the Standing Committee on Petitions. These 12,000 signatures have been collected in just eight short weeks. Having just returned from China, I have discovered that the Chinese do everything large. Again, we have a very large petition from the Chinese community. The petition has been collected by the Chinese Community Social Services Centre Inc., which is the largest welfare service provider for the Chinese-speaking community in the state of Victoria.

I have been honoured to know the Chinese Community Social Services Centre over the 11 years I have been the federal member for Chisholm. I am honoured to have their main headquarters within my seat, in Box Hill. It gives me great pleasure tonight to acknowledge in the gallery the members of the board of the Chinese Community Social Services Centre who have made the trip from Victoria just to be here tonight to see their petition tabled: Fred Chuah, the president; David Yong, the vice president; Kim Au, the secretary and amazing CEO; Josephine Foo, the treasurer; Albert Hau; Lionel Leung; and Jenny Khor, who is the staff representative on the board and the nurse in charge at the On Luck Chinese Nursing Home. The On Luck Chinese Nursing Home is a phenomenal achievement of the Chinese Community Social Services Centre. It is the only ethno-Chinese-specific nursing home within the state of Victoria.

The Chinese Community Social Services Centre have gone to the length of getting this petition signed to draw to the attention of the House the issue of the rapidly growing needs of the ageing Chinese population within Victoria. The petition says:

This petition of concerned Victorian citizens draws to the attention of the House:

The lack of recognition of the actual size of the rapidly-growing Chinese-speaking aged population;

The severe shortage of residential care places and community care packages that can cater for the specific needs of Chinese-speaking senior Victorians;

The shortfall of approximately 562 aged care places to which Chinese-speaking senior Victorians are entitled based on the national aged care planning benchmark;

The sufferings of Chinese-speaking senior Victorians and their carers when eligible applicants have been on waiting lists of Chinese-specific aged care services for more than three years and some passed on before they could secure a place;

Pro-active measures need to be in place to respond to the substantial increase of Chinese-speaking aged population in Victoria, estimated to grow by more than 300% from 2006 to 2026.

We therefore ask the House to:

Acknowledge that Australian citizens of Chinese background come from more than 100 countries and Government statistical data on the Chinese community should be compiled based on the language spoken at home instead of country of birth/origin;

Give priority to the Victorian Chinese-speaking community in its allocation of residential care places and community care packages in the forthcoming Aged Care Approvals Round;

Develop a strategic plan, through community consultations, to address the needs of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds for aged care services.

As I said, within my electorate of Chisholm I have a growing and ageing Chinese population. The Chinese Community Social Services Centre has catered to their needs for in excess of 20 years, starting off with services of a social nature but over time realising that more and more needed to be done in the aged-care area, particularly in a language-specific way. They do provide aged-care services into the home, but the On Luck Chinese Nursing Home is a phenomenal site. I really do encourage people to go and look at it in Donvale. It is not actually in my electorate, but a lot of people from my electorate currently reside there quite happily in their old age, because the home operates using their own language, with their own cultural background and their own food. One of the things that I delight in every time that I go there it is that people are very happy because all the television is in Chinese because they have got very large satellite dishes. Unlike other nursing homes, where the language is something they do not identify with, this is a place where they feel comfortable and their aged-care needs can be met.

I congratulate the Chinese Community Social Services Centre on this phenomenal petition. It has been done in both English and Chinese, and we have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that it will meet the requirements of the Petitions Committee and we will not disenfranchise anyone from signing the petition. Many people from the non-Chinese community have also signed this petition in respect of the needs of our ageing community, to ensure that we are identifying areas of need and appropriately catering to them. It is one of those areas where we will probably as government never have enough money to satisfy all the requirements, but we need to be doing more for our ageing population. I commend the Chinese Community Social Services Centre for all the phenomenal work they do. It gives me great pride to present this petition to the parliament this evening.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The document will be forwarded to the Standing Committee on Petitions for its consideration. It will be accepted subject to confirmation by the committee that it conforms to the standing orders. It being 9 pm, the debate is interrupted.