David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to have an opportunity to speak on this legislation. I am pleased that there is bipartisan support for it. We have a number of speakers who are interested in speaking on this matter, so I will keep my remarks brief, but I did want to comment in particular on two aspects of aged-care policy and the very important differences between the government and those opposite.

One is in relation to a matter we have heard a little bit about today, which is the dementia and severe behaviours supplement. Of course, we are all supportive of initiatives that seek to reduce the impact of dementia and increase care for people with dementia in our community, but you can only take those caring initiatives if you are able to manage them in a sensible way. It is important to have the compassion and to have the heart that motivates you to help people in need. But it is also very important to have the presence of mind—the common sense, frankly—and basic administrative capacity to actually deliver things. The previous government got this horribly, horribly wrong.

The dementia supplement, the previous government said, would cost less than $12 million a year and they thought that about one per cent of people would be eligible to apply. What actually happened was dramatically different. It was not one per cent of people who were granted the funding; it was actually 15 per cent. It was 15 times more. As a consequence, what was meant to be an expenditure of less than $12 million was headed to $110 million, almost a tenfold increase. If you want to deliver compassionate services, you need to have the common sense to actually budget for them, plan for them, do the hard work, do the detailed work that enables you to deliver in a sensible way. The previous government did not do that.

Remarkably, what those opposite say is: 'Just continue on. Even though it was 10 times more expensive, just continue on.' That would cost $800 million over the forward estimates period, over the next five years—completely unsustainable. It would be like budgeting $30,000 to spend on the family car, you get to the dealership, it is $300,000, and you say, ' We'll buy it anyway. We'll just borrow the other $270,000.' That is not common sense. We must be compassionate in our dealings in the aged care sector—and this government certainly is; it is maintaining levels of funding—but you have to be sensible about how you do it. This opposition was absolutely appalling in its mismanagement in this area.

Then we have the aged care workforce supplement. This was industrial tactics by stealth—not so much stealth, because it was pretty obvious. If you actually looked at the rules under which people could obtain this aged care workforce supplement, if you had more than 50 employees, you could only get access to the supplement if you had an enterprise agreement. And if you had an existing enterprise agreement, it had to be updated to comply with various rules under these provisions. Now, of course, in practice, that means you have to do a deal with the union. That was the only manner in which you could obtain this supplement if you had more than 50 employers, which, of course, most larger aged care facilities do. That industrial activity by stealth is just not appropriate in this sector. As Catholic Health Australia Chief Executive Martin Laverty said:

Using a government contract to force an industrial outcome was not in the best interests of those who would miss out on pay rises where their workforce did not have an enterprise bargaining agreement in place.

If the goal was to help the aged care sector, why would you tie it to an industrial outcome? It doesn't make any sense. It betrays the real motivation of those opposite in this area. We will, of course, reallocate that funding to the aged care sector. We will maintain the level of funding—indeed, we will provide additional increases of over two per cent in various areas of aged care—but we will not do so in a fashion which demands any particular industrial outcome from any aged care provider.

This is important legislation. Some of the technical matters here we agree on. Some of these broader matters of management, we certainly disagree on, because we have a very different approach. These are good amendments, this is good legislation and I commend it to the House.

See this speech in context