John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Gorton knows. These allegations are not without substance given the bona fides of the two Flinders University academics who made them. I am referring to Ms Anita De Bellis and Ms Maree Khoo. Should these serious allegations not prick the conscience of the Minister for Ageing, perhaps figures from the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency will. It found that almost 550 aged-care residents were not fed properly and more than 1,000 were not given proper medication—again, a disgrace. It also found that 14 nursing homes fell down on clinical care, 17 on medication management and six on medication—again, a disgrace.

The minister would do well to take heed of the numerous other reports of substandard care being afforded to one of the most vulnerable groups in our community. We well remember, in the 39th parliament, a former coalition minister coming to this dispatch box in relation to that disgraceful episode referred to by the member for Hindmarsh, the infamous kerosene baths case. If memory serves me correctly, it occurred in the seat of the former member for Isaacs, the late Greg Wilton. He was one of the most prolific speakers and interjectors in this place, and I can remember him shouting out on many occasions, as the then Minister for Aged Care kept coming to the dispatch box, what a disgrace it was that patients had been bathed in kerosene.

This was only a matter of five or six years ago. That was a monumental disgrace and we had the unedifying experience of the then minister defending it. I remember the minister coming to the dispatch box, if memory serves me correctly, on three separate days and taking the total 10 questions from our side—so she would have had to answer 30 straight questions—and each time she came to the dispatch box she was more unconvincing than the last. She took absolutely no responsibility for that disgraceful experience. I felt we were witnessing someone who could have been labelled ‘the mistress of projection’, because everyone got blamed for that disgraceful episode—it was the accreditation agency or it was the public servants working in the department. The member for Macarthur, who is at the table, appreciates this. It was a monumental triumph for projection. The former minister blamed everyone else and took no responsibility. I thought, ‘I am witnessing the mistress of projection,’ because there was no accountability and no acceptance of what had happened in that nursing home. It was a very sad chapter in our history that people could be treated in such a manner.

Our frailest Australians deserve the high-quality care that they are demanding, yet, despite the Howard government sitting on record billion-dollar surpluses, many residents have suffered from its reckless and lackadaisical approach to many allegations of maltreatment. The Prime Minister has previously stated that he, like any other person, is distressed by individual stories of people not being treated well. The Prime Minister stated, on 30 March 2000:

I don’t believe for a moment, no matter what system you have, you wouldn’t occasionally have some abuses.

I do not doubt the Prime Minister’s sincerity when he made that statement. In fact, I am inclined to agree with him. However, the point should not be lost that the government at the very least needs to have these systems in place.

This point is most relevant to the bill before the House tonight. It should not take incidents like the disgraceful incident of kerosene baths being delivered to people in aged-care centres for the government to look at toughening the accreditation processes. Nor should it take horrible, disgusting reports of the abuse and assault of elderly people in nursing homes before a government will get around to doing the right thing, as the Howard government has tried to do with this bill.

We have a right to expect that our parents and grandparents, some of the most vulnerable members of the community, will be well cared for in nursing homes without the spectre of kerosene baths. We have a right to expect that our parents and grandparents can live in comfort and security within residential aged-care facilities without fear of attack or abuse. The majority of Australia’s aged-care facilities offer caring and compassionate service to the elderly. However, there is clearly a minority of aged-care facilities and the rare aged-care staff member that fail to meet minimum decent standards. Systems need to be put in place to protect our parents and grandparents from them, however rare they may be.

Members will recall the ABC Lateline program which aired on 20 February 2006. Many Australians were understandably repulsed by allegations of the sexual assault by a male staff member on a 98-year-old woman and three other dementia patients in a Victorian nursing home. How could such an assault take place? It is just unthinkable. Further allegations of less serious though equally unacceptable behaviour were aired that evening. They included the allegation that an elderly woman was squirted in the face with a water bottle apparently on three separate occasions.

It is a very sad indictment of the nature of human beings that some people will be abused simply because they can be. The assault by so-called aged-care providers on the aged or the frail is an assault on all of us. Unfortunately, evidence of the abuse of the elderly in aged care continues to mount. Questions to Senate estimates reveal that from July 2006 to November 2006 there have been 23 allegations of abuse in aged-care facilities. Four of these allegations have already resulted in charges being laid. Yet the government’s moves to tighten regulation of the industry have remained lethargic at best. A more proactive approach to aged care and the need to tighten the seriously inadequate levels of regulation is taking on even greater impetus. In the coming 20 to 30 years members of the baby boomer generation—that is us—will be making the transition to aged care.

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