Regulation, policy oversight and funding of aged care services are predominantly the role of the Australian Government - under three successive Coalition governments needs are not being met

Regulation and policy oversight of aged care services are predominantly the role of the Australian Government. It funds residential aged care, home care and home support, with state, territory and local governments also funding and/or delivering some of these services directly. However, most services are delivered by non-government providers such as private-for-profit, religious and charitable organisations.

Government subsidises a significant portion of the cost of providing aged care, but clients and residents are expected to contribute where they can and may be charged fees and payments by service providers.

In 2018-19 there were est. 3.9 million people 65 years of age or older in the Australian population.

Of these older people:

236, 213 were in permanent residential care;

64,117 had received respite care;

24,137 had received transition care or short-term restorative care;

1,072 national ATSI flexible age care program places were operational;

826,335 were receiving home support; and

131,534 were receiving home care packages. 
[Productivity Commission, REPORT ON GOVERNMENT SERVICES 2020]

That is est. 1.2 million older Australians who are receiving some form of government funded care.

Government recurrent expenditure on aged care services was $20.1 billion in the 2018-19 financial year or $4,874 per older person, with the federal government providing 98.2 per cent of the funding.

That low annual level of expenditure per person may be one of the reasons for this…..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 2020:

The time it takes for older Australians to enter a nursing home after being assessed as needing residential care has blown out almost 50 per cent in two years, while waiting times for the highest level of home care package are 34 months.

The Productivity Commission reports that the median "elapsed time" between getting approval from an aged care assessment team (ACAT) and going to a nursing home was 152 days in 2018-19. This is up from 121 days in 2017-18 and 105 days in 2016-17.

In New South Wales, the median wait time was 143 days in 2018-19 and 124 days in Victoria. Across Australia, almost 42 per cent of older people entered a nursing home within three months of getting ACAT approval. Almost 60 per cent of people entered a nursing home within nine months.

The Productivity Commission explained the waiting time was influenced by the availability of places as well as an older person's "preference to stay at home for as long as possible". The commission noted people may choose to try to access formal help at home or more family help, instead of taking up a nursing home place.

It said there may also be delays if people sold their family home before going into residential care.

The Productivity Commission's annual report on government services follows the aged care royal commission's recent scathing assessment of the sector. In its interim report, the royal commission slammed the aged care system as "sad and shocking", "diminish[ing] Australia as a nation". It also comes amid pleas from the aged care sector for $1.3 billion in urgent financial assistance to keep nursing homes open around the country.

The Productivity Commission's report, released today, said the median time between ACAT approval and the offer of a home care package ranged from seven months for a level one package, to 34 months for a level four (highest needs) package in 2018-19.

The commission said there was no comparable data on home care package "elapsed times" for previous years, due to a change to the approval process in 2017. Federal government data released before Christmas showed more than 112,000 people were waiting for home care. The royal commission singled out the home care wait list for urgent attention last October, noting "many people die waiting".

According to the Productivity Commission, in 2018, 84.4 per cent of those who received a formal aged care service in the home over the previous six months said they were satisfied with the quality of help they received. This was down from 89.2 per cent in 2015.

The report also found that 34 per cent of people over 65 who live at home and were classified as "in need of assistance" said their needs were not "fully met"…..

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison & his merry band of cost cutters decided to save $9.2 million a year by cutting off CapTel phones for the profoundly deaf. Luckily this new front in Morrison's ongoing war on the poor & vulnerable was something of a fizzer

"The Commonwealth Government has awarded American company, Concentrix Services a contract to deliver the National Relay Service (NRS). One of the first things Concentrix is contracted to do is to shut down the CapTel handset service on 1 February 2020." [Deaf Forum of Australia, July 2019]

ABC News, 31 January 2020: 

Thousands of hearing-impaired Australians could face a return to 1980s technology from today after the Federal Government cancelled a deal to support text-captioning telephones. 

Phones with CapTel captioning display words on a large screen in near real time, so deaf and hearing-impaired users can make calls and see the responses. 

But in a decision criticised by disability advocates, the phones will not work as of February 1, after the Department of Communications declined to renew the service provider's contract with the National Relay Service (NRS).  
A new company won the contract. [Concentrix Services Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the SYNNEX Corporation]

It will force users to take up alternative options, with many choosing to revert back to what are known as TTY teletypewriter phones — technology first introduced in the 1980s. 

For Christine O'Reilly, the CapTel phone changed her life. Ms O'Reilly's hearing has been deteriorating since childhood and now at 62, she is profoundly hearing impaired. 

"When I received the CapTel I was so overjoyed I burst into tears," she said..... 

Critics say the decision has come down to one thing: money. 

The cost of the NRS has blown out in recent years, from $26.3 million in 2015-16, to $31.2 million in 2017-18...... 

The new NRS contract awarded last June provides for $22 million per year over three years. 

Until recently there were more than 3,500 CapTel handsets distributed across Australia. The Department of Communications estimates about 1,000 are still active. 

"I certainly acknowledge any transition of this kind is challenging, particularly for older Australians who may not be as familiar with technology," 

Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher said. "We've retained a team of trainers who've been going to meet individually with CapTel users to brief them on their alternatives." .....

It is expected many users will switch to TTY teletypewriter phones, which have a small two-line screen for text above the number pad. 

"We're having to go backwards in time, and everyone else can get the latest iPhone," said Dr Alex Harrison, a profoundly deaf veterinarian in Adelaide. 

"[I feel] enormously frustrated and discriminated against," he said. 

Dr Harrison said the CapTel phone had revolutionised his practice, allowing him to easily make up to 10 calls a day. 

Making a call on a TTY phone is much more complicated. "If I want to make a phone call on the TTY, I have to call a 133 number first … and they'll put me through to an operator," he explained. 

Once you do that, you may be put on hold or told you are in a queue to make a call. 

On January 7, the department acknowledged wait times to get through were unacceptable. 

"We understand and acknowledge community disappointment about these issues and can assure you that we are focused on resolving these concerns as a priority," it said. 

To address the wait times, the relay service provider Concentrix is currently hiring and training additional staff. 

New staff took their first calls just prior to Christmas and more staff will commence during the rest of January. 

Other options offered by the Department of Communications are internet-based call captioning and apps designed to work on mobile phones and tablets. 

But users said many of the online options were much slower and less user-friendly, requiring them to fill in multiple fields just to initiate a phone call. 

"The other options are far too slow. They're primitive," Ms O'Reilly said. 

 And advocates point out the average age of CapTel phone users is more than 80. 

"For an elderly person who's not tech savvy, [these options] can be very intimidating, and often they can't do it. Some of these people are 80 or 90, and they really struggle with that," Dr Harrison said..... [my annotation in red]

"It is indeed a big shock to many Australians, and myself, who rely and need the Captel handset. It seems to me that this section of people with a hearing loss have been sacrificed in a big way so that the TTY can be ‘re-introduced’ and then plunge those who went deaf later in life and whom can speak, right back in the dark ages. It is also a direct insult to the intelligence of the people who worked long and hard to get Captel up and running in Australia. Many of our members have spoken of their dismay and disgust, particularly being isolated and the loss of their independence. In the long run, this move will cost the Australian government much more than it does now." [Deaf Forum of Australia, July 2019]

Thankfully, Captioned Telephone International, the company whose contact the Morrison Government refused to renew and, its president Rob Engelke, have bigger, kinder hearts than either Prime Minister Scott Morrison or Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher, as Mr. Engelke has committed the company to maintaining the CapTel system for those Australians who would otherwise lose their handsets by arranging for the routing of all calls through the company's U.S. captioning centres, while it investigates long-term options based in Australia.

Clarence Valley Council receives $1 million in bushfire recovery funding

The NSW Berejiklian Government has received its state share of the $2 billion in bushfire recovery funding from the federal government and, has informed Clarence Valley Council to expect to have an extra $1 million in its coffers this week.

This money is in addition to grants already received from the NSW Government to assist with repair of certain road infrastructure damaged by the bushfires.

Council expects to use this $1 million grant to rebuild community assets such as sporting facilities and community halls, as well as creating infrastructure which will increase resilience in times of disaster.

The million dollar grant is welcome, however the financial cost of these devastating fires will be a strain on council and local communities for some time to come.

Are some homeless people being denied access to affordable housing in Australia also?

It would be foolish in today's political environment - and with society seemingly drifting mindlessly further to the right each decade - to reject the propostion outright that this would not be occurring somewhere in Australia today.......

The Guardian, 17 September 2019:

Homeless people are being denied access to affordable housing because social landlords are routinely excluding prospective tenants who are deemed too poor or vulnerable to pay the rent, a study has revealed.

Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) found that “screening out” of homeless applicants nominated for newly available lets was widespread, as housing associations and local authorities increasingly ration their shrinking stocks of social homes.

In many cases nominees were refused a home because of the likelihood they would accrue major rent arrears after moving on to universal credit, because of the probability they would be hit by the bedroom tax or because the benefit cap had made them a financial risk.

Others were rejected after social landlords identified they had unmet mental health or addiction problems, often because of cuts to local NHS and housing support services. Individuals with unmet support needs were regarded as “too high a risk to tenancy sustainment”, the CIH said.

Homeless people were at risk of being caught in a “catch-22 scenario”, the CIH said, with some landlords’ letting practices creating a “perverse situation where the reasons why people may need access to social homes the most can often become barriers to accessing them”.

Some housing associations demanded that prospective tenants who would be moving on to universal credit pay a month’s rent up front, an impossible requirement for many homeless people. Landlords have been badly hit by rent arrears caused by tenants’ five-week wait for a first universal credit payment.

Faye Greaves, the CIH policy and practice officer, who wrote the report, said: “For decades, we have failed to build enough homes, and our welfare safety net is no longer fit for purpose. More and more people are turning to local authorities and housing associations for help to access social housing.

“But that leaves housing providers having to find a balance between people in acute need, local priorities and their need to develop sustainable tenancies. What we found is that relying solely on processes can end up having the opposite effect to that intended.”

It called on ministers to launch a major social housing building programme and scrap right to buy. There has been a net loss of 165,000 social homes in England since 2012, the CIH estimates. It adds that 90,000 of the 340,000 new homes needed every year should be set at social rent. In 2017-18 only 6,434 homes were built for social rent.

The findings will concern critics who believe some housing associations are becoming increasingly estranged from their charitable mission to house homeless people. Many were set up in the late 1960s on a wave of public outrage over growing homelessness typified by the famous BBC drama Cathy Come Home.

Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of Crisis, called for proper scrutiny of social landlords’ letting practices: “Having a safe and stable home is a human need, and this report paints a sorry picture of the difficulties that people who are homeless, or who are at risk of becoming homeless, face in accessing this basic right.”

Pre-tenancy screening is causing tension between housing associations, which want to minimise the damage to their balance sheet of taking on tenants at risk of rent arrears, and councils, which want to exercise their right to nominate social tenancies to reduce growing numbers of homeless people on their books.

The research did not ask what happens to homeless people who are refused social tenancies but the assumption is that most will continue to be housed in high-cost and often unsuitable temporary accommodation in the private sector. Local authorities in England spend nearly £1bn a year on temporary accommodation.

In recent years cuts to government grant funding have meant housing associations have adopted more commercial, profit-orientated approaches, resulting in some being accused of concentrating on building homes for private sale and “affordable rent” at the expense of the people they were set up to help.

The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said its members were committed to providing homes for those most in need and on the lowest incomes but action was needed to reverse the “dire shortage of social rented housing caused by decades of underinvestment”.

David Bogle of Homes for Cathy, a group of housing associations dedicated to restoring the sector’s commitment to ending homelessness, welcomed the report. “Housing associations and local authorities need to be given additional support to develop new social homes and to allocate those homes to those who are homeless and in greatest need.”......

Report: CIH: put people before process when allocating social housing, 17/09/2019

Australian Education Minister Dan Tehan gives working parents in rural and regional areas unrealistic advice

"Nearly 300,000 children in regional and remote areas receive formal childcare. However, unlike capital cities where a glut of childcare centres is reported, access to childcare continues to be a problem in regional areas.” [Centre for Independent Studies, 23 September 2018]

City centrism is alive and well in the Morrison Government.

Photograph: ABC

Here is the Minister for Education and Liberal MP for Wannon Dan Tehan  (pictured left) blithely assuming that every town across Australia not only has a chilcare centre it has more than one.

In Dan's world parents in rural and regional areas are apparently able to shop around for competitively priced childcare.

[cue cynical laughter]

The Daily Examiner, 22 July 2019, p.5:

Greedy childcare centres have gobbled up almost half the money parents were meant to save from new subsidies by raising their fees.

A subsidy system which began on July 2 last year was meant to save the average family $1300 in childcare fees a year.

But new data shows that in the year leading up to the subsidy’s introduction, the average parent with a child in care 48 weeks of the year is paying $622 more than they were 12 months ago.

Of this $276.50 of that came from cost increases between July and September 2018, after the subsidy was introduced.

Labor’s childcare spokes-woman Amanda Rishworth said the government should be “naming and shaming” centres who lifted fees to take advantage of the subsidies.

But Education Minister Dan Tehan said out-of-pocket costs for child care had still fallen almost 9 per cent, and urged those getting a raw deal to “vote with their feet and find a new service”.

Education Department data recording costs in September 2018, the first released since the subsidies came into place, revealed the increased costs.

It showed the average family, which pays for 28.8 hours a week, had fees increase by $13 a week between September 2017 and September 2018, including $5.80 a week increase in the quarter the subsidies were introduced….

Will the Clarence Valley see an upgrade of Grafton Base Hospital within the next three years or will it take a decade to commence?

Grafton Base Hospital is a 50-99 bed public health facility which offers health services to an est. 51,647 resident population in the Clarence Valley on the NSW North Coast and an additional annual tourist population which can reach or exceed 1 million visitors.

In the first quarter of 2019 ambulance arrivals at Grafton Hospital were up 11.5 per cent, emergency department presentations rose by 3 per cent, emergency presentations climbed by 4.2 per cent, hospital admissions increased by 14.9 per cent with acute admissions totalling 3,127 patients and the elective surgery waiting times continued to grow.

In that same quarter during the NSW state election campaign the Nationals MP for Clarence on behalf of the Berejiklian Coalition Government promised voters in the Clarence Electorate a much needed $263.8-million overhaul of Grafton Hospital.

At the time doubts were raised about the genuineness of this promise as it contained little detail.

Those doubts are now resurfacing……

The Daily Examiner, 21 June 2019, p.3:

A major hospital upgrade looks to be a while off as the Clarence Valley joins the long queue of regions promised big projects at the New South Wales election.

The $263million commitment to the Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment was made in the final weeks of the campaign in March and is just one of many major infrastructure promises outlined in the 2019-20 Budget Papers.

However, there there was no specific line item in the 2019-20 Budget and Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis was quick to point out it would take time.

“It’s not a line item as such as we are still in the very early planning stages but there is a commitment for works to commence during this term of government,” he said.

“In the meantime, consultation needs to occur between the LHD, clinicians and the community to ensure the redeveloped hospital is able to provide for the community into the future.”

Mr Gulaptis said he had received assurances from Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Treasurer Dominic Perrotet and Deputy Premier John Barilaro that all election commitments would be honoured and provided a letter from Health Minister Brad Hazzard responding to representations he made after winning the election.

In the letter, Mr Hazzard said the project was one of many promised but work would still start before the end of the current term of parliament.

“In the period prior to the March election, the NSW Government announced a significant number of upgrades to hospital and health facilities across the state,” he said.

“This requires a prioritisation of when projects will commence over the next four years and will occur in alignment with the annual budget process.

“Once funding is made available through the budget process, Health Infrastructure will work with the local health district and clinical staff to progress the project through the planning stages.”......

Is Australia really a fair and just country or is it nothing more than a collection of Scott Morrison clones?

In 2017-18 there were on average 236 requests for housing assistance made every day which were not able to be met by specialist homelessness agencies across Australia.

This figure represents in excess of 86,000 requests for emergency housing assistance - from individuals, couples, parents with small children and elderly Australians -  which were not met in thatfinancial year.

Yet social housing stocks does not appear to be keeping pace with population growth or the needs of people living in insecure accommodation or existing on the street.

Social housing as a share of all housing has been falling since the start of this century and, in total state, territory and federal governments spent est. 2.1 per cent of total government expenditure on social housing and homelessness services in both 2016-17 and 2017-18 according to the Productivity Commission's Reporton Government Services in 2018 & 2019.

Affordable and available private rental is also in short supply.

Homelessness is not confined to the cities either. Here in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales there are hundreds of people without accommodation.

By the end of 2018 the Australian population had grown to over 25 million people and an estimated 190,000 were on social housing waiting lists. 

The population now stands at an over 25,384,573, with est. one birth every 1 minute and 40 seconds, one death every 3 minutes and 19 seconds and one person arriving to live in Australia every 56 seconds,

At state, territory and federal levels government is well aware of the housing situation, yet Morrison & Co in particular still describe calls for further spending on government services such as housing as being calls based on the “politics of envy”.

These days I often read comments on social media asking when it was we stopped being a fair, just and kind country.

Well the truth is that Australia was never the fair, just and kind society we liked to think it was.

Just look at out history when it comes to Aboriginal Australia, children in institutional care, our aged and disability care systems and our treatment of refugees.

What governments since Federation have done is paper over the cracks between what we are and what we believe about ourselves. They did this by funding a wide range of government services to meet basic human needs like safety, shelter, food, education and health care.

Since 2013 the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has been walking away from adequately providing many of these basic services, by year in and year out failing to increase funding, reducing funding or cutting funding altogether.

BACKGROUND

This is what the Australian Parliamentary Library had to say on the subject of homelessness in March 2018:

On 14 March 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released their homelessness estimates, based on the 2016 Census of Population and Housing.

Under the ABS definition, a person is homeless if they do not have suitable accommodation alternatives and their current living arrangement:

 is in a dwelling that is inadequate, or

·         has no tenure, or if their initial tenure is short and not extendable, or

·         does not allow them to have control of, and access to space for social relations.

    The key homelessness estimates from the 2016 Census are that:

·         there were 116,427 people enumerated in the Census classified as being homeless on Census night (up from 102,439 in 2011)

·         the homelessness rate was 50 persons for every 10,000 persons—up five per cent from the 48 persons in 2011, and up on the 45 persons in 2006

·         the homelessness rate rose by 27 per cent in New South Wales, while Western Australia fell 11 per cent and the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory each fell by 17 per cent

·         most of the increase in homelessness between 2011 and 2016 was reflected in people living in 'severely' crowded dwellings, up from 41,370 in 2011 to 51,088 in 2016

·         the number of people in supported accommodation for the homeless in 2016 was 21,235; almost unchanged from 2011

·         there were 17,503 homeless people in boarding houses in 2016, up from 14,944 in 2011

·         the number of homeless people in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out in 2016 was 8,200, up from 6,810 in 2011

·         people who were born overseas and arrived in Australia in the last five years accounted for 15 per cent (17,749 persons) of all persons who were homeless

·         the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who were homeless was 361 persons per 10,000 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, a decrease from 487 in 2011

·         the number of homeless persons aged 55 years and over continued to increase, from 12,461 in 2006, to 14,581 in 2011 and 18,625 in 2016 (a 28 per cent increase between 2011 and 2016). The rate of older persons experiencing homelessness has also increased, from 26 persons per 10,000 of the population in 2011 up to 29 persons per 10,000 in 2016 and

·         the male homelessness rate increased to 58 males per 10,000 males, up from 54 in 2011, while the rate for females remained steady at 42 per 10,000 females.

Severe crowding and social housing

As noted above, a majority of the increase in homelessness between 2011 and 2016 was a result of more Australians living in severely crowded dwellings. This was also the case between the 2006 and 2011 Censuses.

While homelessness is not just the result of too few houses, severe overcrowding does suggest that there is a need for more housing that is affordable to low- to middle-income earners, and social housing in particular. Social housing is housing that is managed by either state and territory housing authorities or community housing providers and made available at below market rates to people who are unable to access suitable accommodation in the private rental market.

Despite Australia’s social housing stock having grown over the years, this has not been at a rate sufficient to keep pace with household growth and demand. As at 30 June 2017, there were 189,404 applicants on the waiting list for social housing across Australia. A significant proportion of these applicants are likely to be households in greatest need—that is, households that are homeless, in housing inappropriate to their needs or that is adversely affecting their health or placing their life and safety at risk, or, have very high rental housing costs.

Severe overcrowding is particularly prevalent among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with 70 per cent of homeless Indigenous Australians in this position. The latest homelessness estimates indicate that the rate of homeless Indigenous Australians fell between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses. If this rate is to continue to fall then this may hinge to some extent on the outcome of negotiations currently underway between the Australian Government and the states and territories over Commonwealth funding for housing for Indigenous people following the expiry of the National Partnership on Remote Housing in June 2018.

Homelessness by geography

In the linked spreadsheet, the Parliamentary Library has compiled homelessness estimates by ABS geographical areas and homelessness operational groups. Table 1 details total homeless persons by Statistical Area 2. Table 2 sets out total homeless persons by Statistical Area 3 and operational group.

Table 1 also lists the Commonwealth electorate that is most aligned with each SA2. Electorate estimates cannot be derived from this table.

Even when trying to do the right thing are Morrison Government MPs hampered by the penny-pinching ways of their leader

Lismore City Council, 9 April 2019:

As a result of the significant flood event of April 2017 that impacted Lismore in the wake of ex-tropical Cyclone Debbie, Lismore City Council was successful in securing funding for the repair and remediation of a major landslip located at Beardow Street, Lismore Heights.

The initial works at an estimated and approved cost of $1.12 million were funded by the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA).

Contaminated soil was discovered during the restoration process and the cost of remediation is significantly greater than the currently available funding.

When contamination was discovered, eligibility for compensation through the NDRRA changed outside of Council’s control. Council was initially advised that the remediation was eligible for NDRRA funding. This advice was rescinded in late 2018. Negotiations with State agencies continue on this matter and work has stopped while funding issues are resolved.

The area is still contaminated and material needs to be removed. A schedule of works has been developed for full remediation of the site.

The residents in the vicinity of the landslip rightly seek a resolution to the issues associated with access to property, remediation, repairs to the landslip and the lack of clarity around timeframe for completion.

Residents have worked with Council to manage the issues and need closure. They are acutely aware of the process Council needs to follow and have justifiably reached a point where a solution is both required and demanded.

Council’s estimated cost to complete the remediation works is an additional $2.4 million. Council’s December 2018 quarterly budget review provides $700,000 to address the remediation at Beardow Street. Council has been advised of an alternate estimate to complete the works in the order of $5.7 million undertaken by an affected landowner. To date Council has been unable to source the estimated funding shortfall of $1.7 million from Government.

Council is continuing to negotiate a funding outcome. Council held an emergency meeting with Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) on Thursday, 14 March 2019 to find a solution. RMS management attended the site on Tuesday, 19 March 2019 to discuss options. A steering committee has been formed with Council and RMS staff. RMS has made available their geotechnical and environmental specialists, however no alternate solution has been recommended. RMS has made application to the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) for a review of NDRRA eligibility. OEM have escalated the matter to the Federal Government for review of eligibility, however there is no guarantee of success and no time frame for a response. On 29 March 2019 RMS requested Council make application for a Specific Purpose Grant. The outcome of this application is unknown.

The nearest licenced disposal site for the asbestos contamination is in Queensland. The Queensland waste levy comes into effect on 1 July 2019. The levy will add $2 million to the cost of the project in contaminated soil disposal costs.

Council has engaged litigation specialists to provide advice on NDRRA eligibility and options to secure funding. The current advice is to commence with formal correspondence to RMS and/or OEM. This action is underway.

The solution proposed is for Council to obtain the required $1.7 million shortfall from government. We require support from Council for the actions taken to date as well as support for any legal proceedings instigated to recover the restoration costs associated with this natural disaster event. 

On 26 April 2019 during the recent federal election campaign The Northern Star reported that all the candidates, including sitting Nats MP Kevin Hogan, had been asked to commit $10 million to fully remediate this site.

On 27 May 2019 a Lismore journalist stated that Hogan has committed $2.4 million to remediate the asbestos and chemical contaminated landslip. Although it was not explained how he could do this when the new Lib-Nats Coalition Government is weeks away from being sworn in by the Governor-General or why he was committing to less than a quarter of the money requested.

Council is still considering instigating legal proceedings to progress the eligibility of its initial claim for state funding.