John Cobb (Parkes, National Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 proposes a number of amendments to the Aged Care Act 1997 (the act). The bill gives effect to changes to the treatment of income streams and assets that have been disposed of under the assets test for entry into permanent residential aged care. The bill also clarifies current delegation practices in relation to aged-care assessment teams.

Since coming to office in 1996, the Howard government has worked consistently to ensure that older Australians needing long-term care have access to a high-quality and affordable aged-care system capable of meeting their needs and preferences.

This bill brings the treatment of gifting and income streams for aged-care assets testing purposes into line with their treatment for pension assets testing purposes, as announced in the 2006-07 budget. This builds on the government’s changes to streamline administration in aged care that responded to the recommendations of the 2003-04 Review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care.

The changes are designed to simplify the interaction of the aged-care and pension arrangements for greater transparency and to facilitate wise financial planning for older Australians. They will also improve the sustainability of the aged-care financing arrangements.

Currently, assets gifted by prospective residents are excluded from assessment for aged-care assets testing purposes but are included in the pension assets test and such gifts can reduce the amount of age pension received. The current arrangements apply until 1 January 2007 and therefore people entering or moving between residential aged-care homes up to and including 31 December 2006 will not be affected.

People who enter residential aged care or move to another aged-care home from 1 January 2007 and who seek an assets assessment through Centrelink or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs will have any gifts they have made from 10 May 2006 that exceed the allowable amounts included in that assessment.

The allowable amounts are those that currently apply for the pension asset test as well as for pension and aged-care income assessment purposes—$10,000 in any financial year or $30,000 over five years.

Currently complying income streams are fully exempt from the aged-care assets test. The government has listened to feedback from consultation with stakeholders and this exemption will now continue for all complying income streams purchased prior to 20 September 2007.

This bill also amends the act to allow for the Secretary to the Department of Health and Ageing to delegate to members of the aged-care assessment teams (ACATs) the secretary’s power to extend the maximum number of days per year on which a person may be provided with residential respite care. This change will remove any uncertainty about the role of ACATs in this process.

The bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, in order to ensure the maximum transparency and input from all interested parties. The committee recommended in its report of 9 October 2006 that the bill be passed without amendment.

In speaking to the bill in the Senate on Monday 16 October, the opposition spokeswoman on ageing, Senator Jan McLucas, advised that Labor was in support of the amendment.

However, in spite of this, and in spite of the advice of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, the opposition saw it necessary to propose an amendment to the bill. The opposition amendment, however, bore no relevance to the bill, and introduced some completely new and unrelated suggestions, about issues that are already under consideration by the Howard government.

The opposition amendment proposed to legislate a requirement that all aged-care homes be subject to at least one unannounced support contact visit per year by the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. The amendment went on to further suggest that aged-care homes must not be given any prior notice of support contact visits, and that such visits must assess all 44 of the accreditation standards.

The Howard government has an excellent track record in aged care, and passage of this bill will enable this to continue.

See this speech in context