Mr MITCHELL - 1999-04-22
Last week a number of our constituents, indeed, the constituents of most members in the House, attended the launch of the new Northern Territory Seniors’ Card, held by the minister and the Chief Minister in the Great Hall.
Can the minister please inform the House what impact the NT Seniors’ Card is expected to have in the Territory, and how many Territorians will benefit?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I am indeed fortunate to have among my portfolio responsibilities, seniors, during this International Year of the Older Person. We had an occasion in this building a mere 10 days ago where we launched the Seniors’ Card. Simultaneously, my colleague, the minister for Centralian affairs, launched the card in Alice Springs. We had a great celebration in this place with over 400 people attending it, including some of the members here today and some of their parents.
The launch of the card was an election promise delivered by this government and its purpose is to provide a card where seniors can have access to services and goods at a discount. So, it provides a benefit for those people who list in the catalogue of services and provides a benefit to our seniors.
We launched an ad at the same time to alert people and raise awareness of this and the ad used locals, they were great actors, none of them were professional actors, but those of you who have seen the ad I’m sure would agree that they did a great job.
At the launch, we figured that a few people would be applying and we received 200 applications on the day. Within 24 hours we’d actually received 1000 applications for the Senior Card. We had originally expected to have about 4000 to 5000 cards issued and we printed 10 000 application forms. I’m pleased to inform the House that we’ve been absolutely inundated and conservatively have received over 4000 applications which we’re going through at the moment. It’s been a great initiative.
The business community, likewise, has realised the potential of the buying power and the clout of these 4000 people, and we’re now getting businesses that missed out on getting into the catalogue approaching us about how they might be included as an addendum. We have reprinted another 5000 forms and on it we’ve said that it could take 30 days for the application to be processed. I can inform the House that I’ve had to put additional staff resources to this because the reaction has been so great. We are getting many inquiries on our 1800 number and we expect the businesses to grow in the Territory as a result of this and we expect seniors to benefit from the discounts.
Can the minister please inform the House what impact the NT Seniors’ Card is expected to have in the Territory, and how many Territorians will benefit?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I am indeed fortunate to have among my portfolio responsibilities, seniors, during this International Year of the Older Person. We had an occasion in this building a mere 10 days ago where we launched the Seniors’ Card. Simultaneously, my colleague, the minister for Centralian affairs, launched the card in Alice Springs. We had a great celebration in this place with over 400 people attending it, including some of the members here today and some of their parents.
The launch of the card was an election promise delivered by this government and its purpose is to provide a card where seniors can have access to services and goods at a discount. So, it provides a benefit for those people who list in the catalogue of services and provides a benefit to our seniors.
We launched an ad at the same time to alert people and raise awareness of this and the ad used locals, they were great actors, none of them were professional actors, but those of you who have seen the ad I’m sure would agree that they did a great job.
At the launch, we figured that a few people would be applying and we received 200 applications on the day. Within 24 hours we’d actually received 1000 applications for the Senior Card. We had originally expected to have about 4000 to 5000 cards issued and we printed 10 000 application forms. I’m pleased to inform the House that we’ve been absolutely inundated and conservatively have received over 4000 applications which we’re going through at the moment. It’s been a great initiative.
The business community, likewise, has realised the potential of the buying power and the clout of these 4000 people, and we’re now getting businesses that missed out on getting into the catalogue approaching us about how they might be included as an addendum. We have reprinted another 5000 forms and on it we’ve said that it could take 30 days for the application to be processed. I can inform the House that I’ve had to put additional staff resources to this because the reaction has been so great. We are getting many inquiries on our 1800 number and we expect the businesses to grow in the Territory as a result of this and we expect seniors to benefit from the discounts.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016