Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise, following on from the member for Canberra, who spoke about the importance of seniors wanting to live with dignity in their own homes and that if that were not possible, with certainty and stability in aged care facilities such as retirement villages and nursing homes. On that point I certainly agree with her wholeheartedly, as I am sure all members in this House would.

We do have an ageing population, and that is why discussion about the Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013, Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Bill 2013, Australian Aged Care Quality Agency (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013, Aged Care (Bond Security) Amendment Bill 2013 and Aged Care (Bond Security) Levy Amendment Bill 2013 is so vitally important. Whilst I agree with the member for Canberra on some of the statements she made on the Commonwealth being able to provide for those people in their twilight years, certainly her side of politics has not helped our aged people to be able to live with the dignity that they deserve.

During the 2010 election campaign, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, stated that aged care reform would be a second-term priority. In the same election campaign the Prime Minister had to deny that she had not supported big increases to the age pension because 'old people never vote for us'. Last year this Labor government, which tonight will deliver its sixth successive budget deficit, cut $1.6 billion from the aged care funding instrument, the ACFI, to fund a $1.2 billion workforce compact. The ACFI is the means by which Commonwealth subsidies are allocated to residential aged care providers. The government justified this by publicly suggesting widespread rorting was occurring amongst aged care providers, even though there has not been a single—not one!—prosecution in five years. An entire sector has been tainted—sullied—by this outrageous claim.

This government has undertaken numerous reports and reviews, including 20 reviews and three Productivity Commission reports. These reviews and reports have either been ignored continually or responded to with even more inquiries without any decisions being made to secure aged care into the future. Five years on, there is still no change on the ground—five years on.

In 2010 the government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry into the aged care system, and the final report, Caring for older Australians, was released by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, on 8 August 2011. Eight months later, on 20 April 2012, the Prime Minister and Minister Butler announced the government's response to the report entitled Living longer. Living better.

The bills before the House today implement those parts of the package which require legislative changes, whilst implementations that required no legislative action began in April 2012. The Living Longer Living Better package of the five bills we are debating now does not resolve many outstanding viability issues for providers. These bills seek to: (1) remove the distinction between low-level and high-level residential care so there will be only one approval process for residential aged care; (2) provide a new means test, combining income and assets tests and new annual and lifetime caps on means-tested care fees; (3) allow accommodation costs to be paid for through a refundable lump sum, a rental periodic-style supplement or combination; (4) make changes to home care, including requiring a contribution for people who enter home care on or after 1 July 2014; (5) establish a new aged-care pricing commissioner; (6) extend the operation of the Accommodation Bond Guarantee Scheme to new bond arrangements reflected in the government's reforms; and, finally, establish the new Australian Aged Care Quality Agency to replace the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency from 1 January next year.

In typical Labor style, the government has cherry-picked from the Productivity Commission report, with industry sources estimating that only five to eight per cent of the recommendations have been adopted. We heard the member for Canberra just moments ago talking about how the government had consulted, how it had made wide-ranging representations to the sector. However, we all know, certainly in this House and certainly on this side of the House, just what the level of Labor consultation goes to. It is not sufficient, it is not adequate; it is never anywhere good enough. The final report received extensive industry support, with 500 submissions made to the Productivity Commission during the inquiry and an additional 500 made following the release of the draft report. Yet Labor all too often ignores the advice it has been given, as it certainly did when it decided to come out with a report following on from the Productivity Commission's, and it does not go far enough to talk to the industry sectors, whether it is agriculture, defence or, in this case, aged care.

According to a Grant Thornton report from June 2012 following the announcement of the Living Longer Living Better package, more than $3.5 billion worth of planned aged-care development projects have been shelved. Further, an August 2012 media release from Leading Aged Care Services stated that aged-care providers face a 'black hole of more than $750 million over the next 2½ years'.

The Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013 will remove the distinction between low-level and high-level residential care, so there will be only one type of approval for residential aged care. The minister has argued this will mean fewer reassessments and allow individuals requiring a permanent residential care place to access any service to meet their needs. The bill will make significant changes to the residential care subsidies and fees for recipients who enter care on or after 1 July next year. This will include a new means test combining incomes and assets tests and new annual and lifetime caps on means tested care fees. As the minister outlined in his second reading speech, the annual cap of $25,000 will be applied for means tested care fees, with a lifetime cap of $60,000. These fees are also both to be indexed.

With regard to accommodation costs, this bill will allow fees to be paid through a refundable lump sum, a rent or periodic style supplement, or combination thereof. Aged-care providers will not be able to distinguish between care recipients based on how they will pay for their accommodation. Clause 52G-3 will provide that the minister may, by legislative instruments, determine the maximum amount of accommodation payment which an approved provider may charge a person, including the maximum daily accommodation payment amount, and a method of working out the refundable accommodation deposit.

This bill will also introduce a new form of care, home care, from 1 July 2013 which will replace community aged-care packages, extended aged care at home and extended aged care at home dementia. An income tested care fee will also be applied to home care for all except full pensioners. This fee will also be capped by year and lifetime, starting on 1 July 2014. The Aged Care Pricing Commissioner will be established under this bill to make decisions on pricing issues. The functions of the commissioner will be to approve extra service fees, to approve accommodation payments which are higher than the maximum amount of accommodation payment determined by the minister, and other functions as determined by other legislation or by the minister. Furthermore, this bill provides for an independent review to commence in 2016 and a report to the parliament by 30 June 2017.

The Aged Care (Bond Security) Amendment Bill 2013 and the Aged Care (Bond Security) Levy Amendment Bill 2013 will extend the operation of the accommodation bond guarantee scheme to new bond arrangements reflected in the government's reforms. The Australian bond guarantee scheme as prescribed in the 2006 act provides a mechanism by which the Commonwealth may repay outstanding bond balances to care recipients should a provider become insolvent or unable to refund balances. There is also the capacity for the Commonwealth to recover the costs of refunding those bonds according to the Aged Care (Bond Security) Levy Act 2006, which is amended to reflect the changes to accommodation in the Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013.

The new Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, to replace the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency from 1 January next year, is established under the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Bill 2013. This new body will be the sole agency which providers of aged care will deal with in relation to quality assurance of aged-care services providers, whether in the home or in a residential facility. The functions of the new agency will be to accredit residential care facilities; conduct quality reviews of home care services; promote high-quality care innovation in quality management and continuous improvement amongst approved providers of aged care; and provide information, education and training to approved providers of aged care. The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 will enable the transfer of assets and liabilities from the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency Ltd to the Commonwealth to facilitate the establishment of the new Australian Aged Care Quality Agency from New Year's Day 2014.

On 7 November last year I hosted the shadow minister for ageing and mental health, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, in my electorate of Riverina. We held a forum attended by a large number of aged-care providers and interested people at Griffith to discuss their thoughts and concerns about the Living Longer Living Better proposals specifically and aged-care services more broadly. We also visited Scalabrini Village, Griffith, where Lauren Kingsbury showed us through before we visited the Griffith Neighbourhood House to discuss with Monica Beckman the facility and the funding needs it has to continue to provide much-needed services to the community—a community, I might add, which has been hard-hit in recent times by poor water policy from this government, and a community which has an ageing population. Many of those people came to this country to start a new life after the ravages of World War II. They did everything this government required of them in building a wonderful city and a wonderful community, and they now deserve the very best treatment in aged-care services that this country and this government can provide, because they have done their bit to help this nation—certainly to grow food to help feed this nation and others—and now we owe it to them to repay that faith that they showed in this country. Many of them, of course, are Australian born, and they too have done their bit—more than their bit, I might add—to help this country and to make it the great food provider that it is. It behoves us to make sure that we look after those people in their twilight years.

One of the major failings of this package is the opportunity the government has missed to reduce the administrative burden—and haven't we heard that on so many levels, in so many speeches that I and many of my colleagues have given—and the red tape and, in too many cases, the green tape. In a sector already swaddled in red tape, this package will deliver even more regulation. The point is repeatedly made—and indeed, was made at the aged-care forum in Griffith that I hosted—that aged-care nurses spend a significant amount of time on unnecessary paperwork. This package is only going to make the piles of paperwork grow and grow and, unfortunately, grow.

The coalition wants reform in partnership with the aged-care sector, and we will provide that. Hopefully, we will be able to do that after 14 September. We do not believe fundamental reform should be imposed from above. Should we be elected to government, we will deliver the first ever aged-care providers' agreement framework, which will be the cornerstone of all of our policy. We want this agreement in place within a year of our taking office in order to begin the real reform that this sector so desperately needs and that Labor has continually failed to deliver.

In my time available, I will also mention the Haven's recent $7.8 million upgrade, which was completed and opened on 27 March. I was fortunate enough to be at that opening with the general manager of that fine organisation, Shane McMullen. Interestingly, the renovation and enlargement of 36 single rooms within the Nan Roberts Community, the construction of two more rooms, improvements to staff facilities and all of the rest were done without government grants. Recurrent funding was used to complete the upgrade, and the South Wagga Lions Club, a wonderful community organisation, did so much work and so much fundraising to make that a reality. All too sadly, in regional areas communities are left to fund their own projects. I could mention the radiotherapy centre at Wagga Wagga, where the community pitched in when there was no—or very little—government help forthcoming to make sure that they got their own facility, which is now the pride of southern New South Wales as far as those facilities are concerned. It is used all too frequently, I might add, because of the number of cancer sufferers and patients in southern New South Wales. But it is still a marvellous and necessary facility. At the moment, there is a very dedicated group of people working to provide palliative care services in Wagga Wagga. Hopefully, this government or a future government will be able to provide much-needed funding for that particular issue and that particular cause, which is so very vital in Wagga Wagga and, indeed, the Riverina electorate I represent.

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