Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (2008 Measures No. 2) Bill 2008. I do take great pride, in fact, in being a member of a political party that has always looked after the most vulnerable members of our society, and that is why I am pleased to address the bill that is before the House today. In many respects the way that we treat our ageing and elderly citizens reflects on us as a society. As our demographics and population change in the coming years, with an ageing population obviously, it is imperative that we ensure that our elderly residents who are entering aged-care facilities are provided with the very best service and support. My own electorate of Charlton is an area where a lot of people retire to, particularly from Sydney, and there is quite a high proportion of retired people in the population in my electorate, many of whom are in aged-care facilities.

The Rudd Labor government has been working hard in this area. We know how important it is in aged care to ensure that the maximum support is provided to people. Today I would like to take the chance, in speaking to this bill, to outline some of the measures that the government has introduced to help support our aged-care residents and to also address the specifics contained in the bill.

The government and the Minister for Ageing have been busy in this area in the first 12 months of government. The government has worked to build the funding for aged and community care over the next four years to reach record levels of more than $40 billion. In the first act of parliament that was passed by the Rudd Labor government changes were introduced to the funding of aged care in Australia which saw more than $1.13 billion in additional funding for the sector over the next four years. In the budget the minister also announced that the government would provide over $2 billion over the next four years through the conditional adjustment payment, or CAP, for providers to care for elderly Australians. This is twice what the Howard government had put into the CAP over the last four years. It brings the total Commonwealth investment in residential aged care subsidies to $28.6 billion over the forward estimates. To put that amount into perspective, it was a rise of 1.75 per cent, from seven per cent to 8.75 per cent, of the basic aged-care subsidy. It can be seen that the government is serious about endeavouring to provide the necessary support in this area.

On top of that, the minister also announced in the budget that the government would be providing $300 million in zero-interest loans to help the aged-care sector create the necessary number of beds in areas designated as high need. Also relevant to this area of policy, and to many residents in aged care, have been the actions taken by the government in relation to pensioners. In the budget, the government announced a number of initiatives to help assist pensioners and older Australians, and we are looking to do more. But the measures announced at the time in the budget included the increase in the utilities allowance to $500 a year from $107.20, the increase in the seniors concession allowance from $218 to $500 per year, the increase in the telephone allowance from $88 to $132 per year for those with an internet connection, and also the payment of a $500 bonus to eligible seniors which included all age pensioners. Those are some of the significant measures which apply to many aged-care residents.

The government has also announced an investigation into measures to strengthen the financial security of seniors, including a review of the age pension, and this review is part of the government’s wider inquiry into the Australian taxation system. I am very pleased that the government has taken this action and look forward to the findings of that report. It is something that I know that many of the retirees and senior citizens in my electorate are also looking forward to.

Not that long ago, I convened a forum within my electorate that was addressed by the minister, the Hon. Jenny Macklin, and the Treasurer, the Hon. Wayne Swan, and the members of my electorate who attended that forum made their views about this well known. But they also have made their views well known about the government’s response to the Economic Security Strategy because—further to the measures that I alluded to that were included in the May budget—financial support has now been provided and will start to be paid in the next two weeks to pensioners, to carers and to seniors, in the form of a $1,400 payment to singles, and a $2,100 payment for couples. As I said, these payments will be delivered in early December, only two weeks away, which should ease some of the extra financial demands that occur at this time of year. These payments constitute an immediate down payment on long-term pension reform which we expect to emanate from the inquiry into the adequacy of the pension that I referred to earlier. Apart from all of these measures, the government is also continuing to improve the provision of services to those in aged care.

The purpose of the bill before us today is to amend the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Aged Care (Bond Security) Act 2006 to address current inadequacies in these pieces of legislation. It also aims to provide for an effective level of regulatory safeguards for ensuring high-quality care for older Australians. It does this by addressing changes in business structures that have occurred since the Aged Care Act was first introduced and which have meant that applicable regulations and scrutiny have not been equally applied to all providers. We need to ensure, for the quality of care, that uniformity in regulation.

It also strengthens the protection of residents’ accommodation bonds, which often represent a lifetime of hard work and saving, through amendments to the current Accommodation Bond Guarantee Scheme. The bill also allows for a reduction of red tape for those applying for aged-care assistance, while also increasing the health and welfare protections for residents. So those, in general, are the provisions contained in the bill. I would now like to turn to dealing with each of those in greater detail.

The bill firstly addresses changes in business structures over the last 11 years, since the Aged Care Act 1997 was introduced. One of these changes has been the move in the industry from a situation whereby the owner of a facility was more than likely going to be the operator in an industry where the owner and operator may be distinct and operate separately. This has followed from a large increase in the level of investment in the aged-care sector from large corporate entities, management rights being then subcontracted. The current legislation does not specifically address these types of structures. This has led to a situation in which the relevant regulations have not therefore necessarily been applied equally to all providers. Amendments under this bill will ensure that the applicable regulations apply to both the owner and the provider of the accommodation, as was the original intention of the act.

Another similar inconsistency has arisen from these changing business structures, and that relates to the issue of related entities. Currently, large corporate entities can sometimes hide behind complex corporate structures when applying for approval for an aged-care facility. Normally, upon application, the Department of Health and Ageing will conduct an assessment of the company’s record in service delivery and its suitability to be approved to deliver the care in the future. However, the legislation as it currently stands does not allow for this examination to cover all related entities of a company, allowing some providers to escape scrutiny behind more complex corporate structures, whether they be deliberate or a consequence of the way a corporate entity and related entities may have evolved.

The changes under the bill will ensure that the department will be able to consider the record of related entities within a corporate structure when making decisions about approvals for a facility. These changes will help provide greater oversight and ensure that owners and providers are subject to the applicable regulations, as was intended. To this end, the bill also eliminates any confusion about which aged-care services are regulated by the legislation. The need for this clarification arises because some developers have placed aged care, retirement villages and disability or step-down care under the same banner. The clarification under this bill makes it clear that only aged-care services are regulated by the Aged Care Act.

The next area dealt with in the bill relates to the increased protection of residential accommodation bonds. As the minister noted in her second reading speech on 16 October, around 970 approved providers, which is about 75 per cent of all providers, held accommodation bonds with a total value of approximately $6.3 billion. That represents a huge amount of the savings of those who are in residential aged care facilities. These accommodation bonds are often the product of a person or couple’s hard work and their lifetime savings. It is therefore imperative that there be appropriate safeguards in place to protect those savings, which are held in the form of accommodation bonds.

In 2006, under the previous government, the accommodation bond guarantee was introduced. This scheme has the aim of protecting residents and their bonds in circumstances where a provider becomes insolvent or bankrupt. However, practice has shown that there are some loopholes in the protections provided, which are addressed by the bill before us. These amendments will therefore serve to increase confidence amongst residents and their families that their lifetime’s savings will be protected, as intended, under this scheme. From my point of view, this is an extremely important part of the bill.

The next area I would like to refer to involves cutting the red tape that is involved in the current system for people seeking access to care. Currently, many ageing Australians are subject to increased waiting times as their assessment for eligibility for the provision of aged care takes place. This bill allows for a significant streamlining of the process through the reduction of much of the associated red tape. The minister will hold further negotiations with the states and the territories on this issue in an attempt to ensure that the amendments in this bill result in real improvements in the time line for the assessment of people waiting to enter an aged-care facility.

Labor is also committed to ensuring that care recipients receive the best health and welfare protection. To this end, the bill includes a reform package designed to provide for the safety and welfare of residents. Firstly, there is a system of increased police check requirements, which will help to ensure that people with convictions for serious offences such as murder, sexual assault and physical assault are not employed to care for older Australians. The strengthening of that requirement is an extremely important component of the security of people in aged-care facilities. Secondly, there will now be a new requirement for providers to contact the Department of Health and Ageing when a resident is missing from a residence or has been reported as missing to the police. This will enable the department to take early action in reviewing the systems in place to ensure that all residents are as safe as possible.

Finally, the bill also makes clear that the department is to consider any action to be taken for breach of compliance of the relevant accountability principles in light of the threats to residents’ health and welfare as well as the interests of current and future care recipients. A similar provision used to exist, but the amendments within this bill ensure that this is given priority status and that there is no ambiguity about its importance.

In conclusion, the Rudd Labor government is committed to providing residents in aged care with the support that they need. As the federal member for Charlton, I am acutely conscious of the importance of this. It is why I have chosen to speak on this legislation. It is also why the government has introduced greater funding, has increased financial support for the sector and is providing stronger regulation of the sector. I would like to congratulate the minister and the department on their work in the development of this legislation and on ensuring that aged-care residents continue to receive improved care.

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