Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak tonight on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Increasing Consumer Choice) Bill 2016. Over the next three decades in Australia our population of people who are over 65 years old is projected to increase from just 14 per cent of the population, as it is currently, to 25 per cent of the population. With this increase comes really significant challenges to a number of programs and support services, including the aged-care sector.

Labor accepts and recognises these challenges and undertook the aged-care reforms when in government to ensure that our aged-care system can keep up with that ageing population. A significant part of Labor's Living Longer Living Better package of reforms was the home-care packages that allowed older Australians to receive the care they require in their own homes while remaining in the community where they live, where their networks and families are. The federal government has allocated close to $7.4 billion for Commonwealth funded home-care packages across the forward estimates.

The first component of the amendments that are before the House really takes aged-care reform in a direction that has been consistent with Labor's Living Longer Living Better program. Although there is a risk of some of those elements being rushed, I think that the generally bipartisan support that has been committed for much of the reforms in the aged-care sector is a good thing. It enables this parliament to have reasonable discussions so that providers and families can have some confidence in the direction of aged care and the sorts of services that all of us in this House believe should be provided.

The amendments before us tonight are going to change the way those home-care packages are being allocated. This bill is the first part of a two-stage plan to change the way the home-care services are being delivered to older Australians. And there is always room for improvement. I know that two approaches are going on in this particular package tonight. The first stage, addressed by this legislation, is really making sure that those home-care packages follow the consumer, as we have heard in this debate tonight—enabling people to choose their own providers, to make that choice and, likewise, be able to change that provider at any time that they see fit, and in making those changes and decisions that package would indeed follow them.

The second component of these amendments would be to create a nationally consistent approach to prioritising access to home-care packages through the My Aged Care gateway. It is actually this second component that I think would have helped address a situation that a family brought to my attention—a case where their mother had had a very unexpected stroke. She was assessed as requiring a level 4 home-care package when she was to be released from hospital, but, unfortunately, at that time there was no level 4 packages available for that family whatsoever. The family was left with no option but to accept a level 3 package. That was a package that failed to meet all of the care needs of their mother. Then the family was advised that the only way a level 4 package would become available was upon the death of another person in a level 4 arrangement. After some time, and through the tragic circumstances for that other family, the level 4 package did become available, but that is clearly a most unsatisfactory situation for anybody's family to be in.

If the amendments that we are looking out tonight go at least some way towards assisting the availability of home-care packages that meet the actual needs of people in our community, then that is a good thing. As I mentioned earlier, we have lent out support and, indeed, we believe that many of the reforms that began through Labor's Living Longer Living Better reforms are continuing to progress in this bipartisan manner now. That is a great thing for all concerned.

There is no greater challenge, perhaps, than ensuring that older Australians get to live productive, fulfilling, healthy, active lives for as long as possible, and then, when they need those support structures in their home and in their community, that those structures are available for families to access. So it is with great pleasure that I get to lend our support to the bill before us tonight.

Debate interrupted.

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