Mr BROUGH(6.52 p.m.) —Mr Deputy Speaker, in the short time available to me tonight I would like to make a few points relating to the previous speaker, the honourable member for Lyons (Mr Adams). First of all, let me say that 77 per cent of the Australian population have already spoken. They have told us that they believe this is a fair, equitable and responsible budget, which is something that has not been achieved in my memory and certainly not in the last 13 years.

I will make a couple of quick comments regarding his last remarks. I noted down on the pad in front of me the words `short-sighted approach'. I think that is exactly what the Labor Party had. The fact that they were willing to sell the future by overspending now indicated quite rightly that they had no long-term vision. In fact, they were quite prepared to sell off the farm. They were quite prepared to go further into debt in order to fulfil their short-term goals rather than to look at the long term.

They talk about the failure of the minister for employment. That is hypocrisy at its best. Six months we have been here. The Telstra bill, the industrial relations bill and the budget—the things with which we went to the people—are not yet through the parliament. When the legislation is passed and they have had time to be put into place and to have an effect, we will see real jobs created. I think that we are going to pay the price for taking an honest approach to government.

We saw in the lead-up to the last election so many people being put into jobs. I should say `into outcomes'. They are not jobs; they are long-term training projects. They enable people to come off the long-term unemployment list and on to the short-term unemployment list. They do not create a job; they do not create any wealth for Australia; they do not give these people any hope. They simply made the government of the day look better. I will perhaps leave to my second instalment my other comments regarding the budget, which the greater percentage of Australians acknowledge was the correct measure to take.

I make reference to A fair go for families, a publication put out by the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission. This is to pre-empt the debate that will take place in the main chamber perhaps tomorrow in relation to the family tax laws. It states:

A simple method of moving towards a fairer taxation system for families would be to introduce additional tax thresholds in respect of dependents.

That is exactly what this government has done. It goes on:

This would recognise the additional minimum costs incurred by families with dependents.

This publication of 1987 was available to the previous Labor government for some eight years, yet it never took it up. In our first term we have taken it up and on 1 January of this year we will see those tax cuts come into effect.

There are two issues I would like to address in the very short time available. The first one is aged care in my own electorate of Longman. Aged Care Queensland has put a submission together which will be going to the federal and state ministers for family services in the next few days. This submission identifies particular areas of Longman as being the most disadvantaged areas when it comes to nursing homes.

The area of Bribie Island in particular is one which has seen a great deal of growth, particularly for elderly people as they move there for the fishing, the beaches, the fine weather and, of course, the quiet lifestyle. It has also resulted in the fact that we have only 50 places in total, provided by one nursing home, for the entire population. The population of people aged 70 and over is some 3,000 to 4,000. This means that in reality, to be able to meet the criteria, we should have somewhere between 300 and 400 nursing home places and we have 50. The situation in Caboolture is no better.

In the past the whole approach to nursing home places has been totally misdirected. We have talked of regions, and Bribie Island and Caboolture come into a planning region called Cabool. Pine Rivers Shire is also part of that particular region. That helps to equalise the numbers. It means that through this process we have been unable to deliver the places where they are needed and where the elderly population wish to live.

We do not, unfortunately, have a large population. The Gold Coast, known as the south coast region, has 3,021 aged care places for a population of 30,939 over 70 years of age. This means that they are underserviced by only 73 places. In the area of Cabool, we are 224 places underserviced. If we were fully serviced just in the Bribie-Caboolture area alone, all of those places would be taken.

I am reassured by Aged Care Queensland that they are recommending 30 places be allocated to Caboolture and 70 to Bribie Island to bolster the already high quality establishments that are there, such as the Bribie Island Retirement Village and the War Veterans' Home at Caboolture, not to mention Sunnymead Nursing Home.

Finally, I would like to bring to the committee's attention the plight of the Autistic Association of Queensland. I have been meeting today with two people, Mr Bruce Faye, the President of the Autism Association of Queensland, and Carol Renard.

Of all the areas of special needs, this particular group is probably the most disadvantaged because, as these people pointed out to the minister and myself today, if you have in this room people suffering from perhaps Down Syndrome, it is quite obvious. Their impediments can be seen and it is very obvious visually. People with autism look just like you and me. The fact is that the needs they have are very much specialised. They need additional care. Unfortunately, in Queensland at this stage we have an absolute lack of people available to service the parents, the school teachers and the carers, as well as the children who suffer from autism.

Whilst people with autism look 100 per cent healthy, their behavioural patterns and ability to communicate are often extremely lacking. The additional care they require is imperative if the families are going to have any quality of life and if the teachers are able to assist them, in particular in regional Queensland where we have one staff member looking after more than 400 families with autistic children. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Main Committee adjourned at 7.00 p.m.