Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We all remember that. That was some years ago now but, at that point in time, the government had the bold introduction of a bond for all aged-care residents. It was dropped at the first whiff of electoral backlash. We all recall that from back in 2001.

Professor Hogan’s review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care three years ago said that funding had to be increased. In a typical response, we have seen the bravado, bluff and bulldust we are so used to from this government. They have dropped the number of aged-care beds from the high-water mark of 92 beds per thousand people aged 70 years and over in 1996 to the current 85.6 beds. In 1996 there was a surplus of 800 beds in this nation. Today, the government is running a most serious and damning deficit of some 5,000 beds, if you use the government’s own formula and quota. That is quite a turnaround in the attention paid to, and care made available to, some of our most needy and dependent Australians. As I said earlier, these people have gone through world wars, they have worked all their lives and they have built the foundations of this nation. The least governments can do for them is to offer them some dignity in their twilight years by giving them the care that they require.

Within the electorate of Hindmarsh, which covers suburbs of Adelaide’s west and south, the deficit has been growing steadily. The last numbers to come out indicated a 10 per cent increase. It was a 10 per cent increase not in beds but in—wait for it—the shortfall of beds within aged-care facilities. And that was in a very short period of time. The government is running an aged-care deficit of just over 300 beds within my area, and that is according to the formula that the government uses to put out beds. Waiting lists are phenomenal. I do not know how many people contact my office wanting help to find a nursing home bed for their parent or elderly relative, but there are many on a constant basis. Most of them cannot find something within the immediate area, but they do find the odd bed. One elderly person was asked to go to Port Augusta, 300 kilometres north of Adelaide. How can you expect someone to move 300 kilometres away from their whole family structure and their whole community?

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