Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this cluster of Living Longer Living Better bills. We have had six years of this government, or five and a half years at least, and now they are desperately trying to leave a legacy, something they can hang their hat on. But six years is more than enough. They are trying to make last-minute sweeping changes across a whole range of policies.

I point out that the end of this parliament is destined to be 27 June, just 15 sitting days away now, and yet the government is trying to put through this cluster of bills. And it is not only in aged care—the government is also legislating in relation to: the Gonski report, which is a negotiated mess; the NDIS, which received bipartisan support but is largely unfunded, certainly beyond the four-year period; and the unfolding disaster of the NBN. It is pointing once again to unplanned and unconsidered policy made on the run by the government, and Australia is paying a dear price for it.

Why would we leave this legislation to the last four sitting weeks of parliament? Why on earth couldn't it have been looked at last year, in the midterm of the government? Didn't the government have any ideas about what they were planning to do with the sector? Did they just dream it up in February or March or April and then decide to legislate it in May in the last four weeks of the parliament? It is another version of the NBN, planned on the back of a napkin at 30,000 feet; hardly a considered policy. The Living Longer Living Better bills are unfortunately in the same boat.

The government actually guillotined the report of the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which was scheduled to report in June. To suit its political timetable, it cut that committee's work in half—or cut it off prematurely—and rushed the legislation through. It is a lack of consultation once again with the industry. The industry is seriously confused with the government's actions.

The last round of reform was the aged-care funding instrument reforms which were activated in February, the ACFIs. You have to hand it to the minister, the member for Port Adelaide—he is a very clever little gentleman; he convinced the industry that a $1.6 billion cut was in their interests. The industry actually came out and supported the changes to the ACFI bill, but the minister had a few cards up his sleeve and the aged-care industry did not realise what they were signing on for. The minister maintained the ACFI had to be reformed because of unusual claims, but there has not been one prosecution in the five years. Like the minister for immigration speaking about 10,000 illegal 457s, it would appear they are just making it up.

In their abundant generosity, the government propose to give $1.26 billion back in a workforce supplement, supposedly to address pay equity for women. That is a very good cause, but to take the funding out of the actual caring arrangements, to take it out of the pockets of the providers that have the task of providing day-to-day care to the people in their care, is simply not good enough. This workforce supplement is not enough in the first instance—and I will come back to that in a little while. It requires people who work for providers who have over 50 beds to sign on to an enterprise bargaining arrangement. Those bargaining arrangements of course are sponsored by United Voice, the Australian Nursing Federation and that bastion of integrity and honesty, the Health Services Union. It is a cosy little deal, isn't it, where a wage increase for low-paid workers is tied up with the implication that they should be driven to union membership? Of course, if the provider has fewer than 50 beds, that is not compulsory, and at least that is a small ray of sunlight.

The Senate committee took ample evidence in this area that the supplement was not sufficient to pay the extra, that small aged-care facilities in particular are just not able to find the extra money because the workforce supplement will not cover the full wage increase. Mrs Julie Christensen, CEO of Narrogin Cottage Homes in WA, summed it up well when she said:

I am very happy to let the committee know right now that we will be one of those who will not be signing up for the workforce supplement. We cannot afford it. I know Ray was saying it was two for one, but in my particular case, if you look at our … costs, I think you will find that it is 3.25 for one. I am running at a loss now. I am hoping we will balance the books next year. I cannot afford anything else. I cannot afford to expose my community organisation, and the assets that belong to the community, to risk, and the decision to sign on to the supplement would put my facility and my organisation at risk.

That is a very strong comment. Marie-Louise MacDonald, the board director of Masonic Care Alliance, said:

The workforce subsidy … is a major concern. We as an organisation and all of our alliance have EBAs which pay above the awards. We all want to do well by our staff and in our own way we put in place a number of things around family friendly environments and rostering around those needs and such to retain our staff. We would love to give them more money … The problem is that the subsidy is a shortfall for what we actually need.

I would like now to touch on how that affects the aged-care facilities in my electorate. South Australian aged care is in crisis, I must say. I speak to them often, and I have quite a number in my electorate. But it is an interesting situation in South Australia, where 50 per cent of the beds in Grey, or thereabouts, are controlled by Country Health, which is the state government.

I will give you a little bit of history, if I may. This has come about because, in a lot of small towns, small hostels were built, separate from hospitals, and over a period of time the hospital boards and the hostels amalgamated their administration, so we had one board within the town that would care for both institutions. This made sense. It worked well. In fact, I was chair of one such organisation. It worked well because the aged-care facility was able to tap into the hospital's expertise in a number of areas. It was able to use things like hospital kitchens. They were able to utilise mutual staff between the facilities. So there were all kinds of spin-offs to do this.

And then, of course, the South Australian government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to do away with local hospital boards and take over the management of those centrally. It installed health advisory committees, which are called HACs—quite an unfortunate name, I must say—and they have been largely disempowered. That local management has shifted hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away to Adelaide. What it has left them with is, in many cases, 10-, 15- or 20-bed community aged-care facilities. They are all under this magic figure of 60 beds, which we are now told is the number you need to make your facility break even.

In the electorate of Grey we have 209 beds, which are in three facilities that have more than 60 beds. By comparison with urban Australia, this is a very low figure, and it reflects the fact that we do not have very large communities—large cities, if you like. We have 284 beds in private institutions of fewer than 60, and they are under extreme pressure. And there are 444 beds that are controlled by Country Health, all under the 60 placement that I was speaking about just a moment ago.

It is a fact of life that facilities that operate in rural and remote areas have much higher operating costs. Quite often, they need to use agency staff to keep their numbers up and keep up the quality of their care. Even the supply of food, electricity, water and all those kinds of things in country areas come at a higher cost, yet they are rewarded in exactly the same way as the city facilities. So you can assume that, if 60 is the magic figure in the city, it will almost certainly be higher in the country. A number of the providers that are running facilities of that size tell me they are really struggling to make ends meet, particularly since February when the ACFI fees changed—the assessment procedure. In my opinion, that would mean that probably 80 per cent of these facilities are suboptimal and losing money, and that is a very scary place to be.

I know that we have already seen bed licences handed back within the electorate. We also know, because the generational review tells us so, that Australia is facing an ageing population and an explosion in the number of beds that will be needed to cater for our ageing population, yet none of these facilities has the ability at the moment to build extra beds. It is a hand-to-mouth existence. Every day is a challenge for them. What we need is some long-term vision in policy. I am concerned that this robbing Peter to pay Paul action that the government has taken to get to this point is bad for all of those facilities. By 2050, we are told, there will be 3½ million Australians using aged care. I hope that I am one of them. I am not planning to get away from this place soon, but I am hoping that by 2050 I will be one of them!

Mr Dutton interjecting—

Perhaps I will be joined by the member! But it is a great challenge for all of us. I am very concerned for those facilities in my electorate. I think we are at the sharp end, the coalface, if you like. When small towns and communities and moderate-sized communities are already facing great difficulty with their facilities, this push now to force the payment of higher wages on them—which is exactly what the workers need—if unfunded or not fully funded, is another arrow in their back. Thank you.

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