Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending a fundraising dinner hosted by the Australian Vietnamese Aged Care Services. The charity dinner was organised to raise funds for the Vietnamese nursing home project, an initiative that will deliver, for the very first time in New South Wales, specific and appropriate aged care for Vietnamese migrants. As a federal member representing one of the most multicultural electorates in the whole of Australia, I should note that more than 20 per cent of my electorate are Vietnamese speakers; therefore, I recognise the very significant and unmet need in our community to provide appropriate aged-care services for Vietnamese elderly.

AVACS is a non-profit organisation that has played a pivotal role in advocating for this much-needed service. AVACS is led by a team of doctors, who have hosted a number of consultations and informative sessions throughout the community on the proposal to establish a 68-bed aged-care facility in Smithfield. Currently there is only one other Vietnamese aged-care project operating, and that is in Victoria; therefore, there is a very high demand and need for having a specific aged-care facility for Vietnamese speakers to be established, particularly in the south-west of Sydney where the population of the Vietnamese community is the largest. According to the 2006 census, the Vietnamese community has the second highest proportion of people over the age of 70 living in south-west Sydney.

The Vietnamese nursing home project is a very important development and will not only provide families with peace of mind but will also ensure that the elderly have access to a facility that is culturally, linguistically and religiously sensitive to the needs of elderly Vietnamese Australians. As part of the competitive process of the Aged Care Approvals Rounds under the former government, AVACS was granted a $12 million low-interest loan. I am happy to say that those arrangements have been continued by the current government.

I take the opportunity to acknowledge and commend the board of AVACS for their dedication, their commitment and their very hard work in establishing the nursing home project, particularly its President, Dr David Tang; Vice President, Dr Hao Vu; the Treasurer, Dr Vinh Nguyen; and Secretary, Dr Vinh Tran; as well as their board members Quang Luu, Thanh Nguyen, David Wallace, Lorraine Poulos and a very energetic Dr Diep Nguyen. This is a very important project to fill a need in the community, and one which I fully support.