John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House this evening to proudly speak about a new aged-care facility that is opening in my electorate of Calare. I will have the great honour of opening the Columbia Aged Care Services Oberon Village on Friday morning. This significant event is very important to Oberon and it deserves a special mention in this House. Having said that, I note the contribution by the previous federal member who looked after Oberon prior to my coming on the scene there. That was Bob Debus. The Oberon committee and the people of Oberon made a huge effort, as did the council and two, if not three, mayors over the past decade.

The Columbia Aged Care Services Oberon Village will be a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility. It will be a purpose-built aged-care facility, home to 66 beds. In addition to lounge and dining areas, there will be multi-use rooms, a massage day spa, allied health services offices, hairdressers and a self-serve cafe. Columbia Aged Care Services Oberon Village is the result of local, state and federal lobbying to address the need for an aged-care facility in Oberon and the need for a business outside of agriculture, mining and forestry. This will be a magnificent one. It has taken 10 years to come to fruition, and the building has taken 18 months. There is an enormous level of community enthusiasm for this new facility, and Friday's opening represents a significant achievement for residents of Oberon and the surrounding community.

Columbia has aged-care facilities in the Sydney metropolitan areas of Strathfield, Chatswood and Marrickville. This is their first facility outside of the metropolitan area. We are all thrilled that they chose to invest in our region. The facility will create anywhere up to 80 full-time and part time jobs, and it is a real shot in the arm for the region. Columbia Aged Care is a long-established respected industry provider of aged care. It is not one of the larger ones but one of the very efficient ones. It has been in the industry for 50 years. It has 450 aged-care beds, including permanent, respite and palliative care beds. Across all sites, it employs around 400 staff.

The service was not operational in the 2013-14 financial year and no funding was provided at that time. It was awarded a $13.4 million zero real interest loan and an allocation of 34 residential places through the 2009-10 ACAR to assist with the construction of a new 66-bed residential service in Oberon. The approved provider provided another 32 places from two of its services in the inner west region of Sydney to make up the 66 places.

It started operating on 18 May, just over a week ago. The estimated cost is $14 million. As far as what the Commonwealth's provision to that on an annual basis would be, given that the average cost of an aged-care bed in Australia is over $51,000, annually they will receive from the Commonwealth well over $3 million just for the aged-care beds. In the central west, it is a growth industry. We have over 1,600 residential care places, 364 provisional places and 541 operational home care places, for which the providers will receive $80 million and another $10 million for home care. I congratulate all levels of government, my predecessor, Bob Debus, and the people of Oberon for hanging in and making this happen.