Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Given that the minister does not want to talk about the Medicare freeze very much at all and she does not want to re-give the Prime Minister's guarantee—clearly she does not want to talk about the Medicare freeze in broad terms and give us some proper data on it—I might move on and ask the minister some questions on aged care. As the minister would know, Australia's baby boomers are moving or are about to move into retirement. Over the coming decades, the need for affordable and sustainable aged-care services is going to increase dramatically. We are all aware that that is coming. That is why we had Labor's reforms—the living longer, living better aged-care package, $3.7 billion over 10 years—that were bipartisan and followed a Productivity Commission report Caring for older Australians. We did a lot of work.

What we are really concerned about now is some of the implementation around the living longer, living better reforms. We are concerned that it will put at risk some older vulnerable Australians. We are particularly concerned about the way the government has implemented some of the recent cuts to the aged-care sector. In December 2015 the minister announced of $472 million for residential aged care. Six months later in the budget there was $1.2 billion worth of cuts to aged care. So I am curious about the modelling and the predictability. Obviously it is demand driven with the ACFI funding model—I get that—but surely we have better modelling from the government and the department about what the projection is going to be so that we know into the future what this is going to look like. If we don't, we certainly to do a lot more work around that. Indeed, I moved a private member's bill on it.

It would be interesting to know whether the minister supports the inclusion in the living longer living better review of a review of ACFI, the aged-care funding instrument, because it is a very complex, demand driven instrument. The Federal Court and others have said it is very complex. The minister knows the sector is saying it is very, very complex and needs some sort of reform so that we can get some predictability and sustainability into the system both for the providers but importantly also for older Australians who are going to be moving into the aged-care system. We need to make sure that as we go forward we have predictability and sustainability in the system. We have had bipartisan support, as I said, on living longer living better. It would be good to know whether the government is going to include a review of ACFI as part of the legislative reform that she has appointed David Tune to do, because we would really want to have ACFI looked at because is going to be critical going forward.

We have also got coming up in February the changes to in-home care. I have been briefed by the department, for which I thank the minister, but I still remain concerned. I just want to make sure that consumers and the public are prepared for the changes. Importantly, the government's My Aged Care website has had some really serious issues. It has been clunky and I have had a lot of feedback that it is still very difficult to use for people who want to access the aged-care system. I want some reassurances from the minister that we are ready for the reforms that are coming in February, understanding that the government are going to write out to a whole heap of people who have been assessed through the ACAT process as being eligible for a package and the government are going to do a whole heap of work around trying to predict what the unmet need is. I have asked some questions of the minister's department around that.

We really need to make sure that the system is ready and also that the public understands the changes that are coming and are able to use the tools that the government are providing to them to access what should be a fair and reasonable aged-care system to make sure people get the support they need and deserve. If we are serious about keeping people in their homes longer so that we do not have such a reliance on residential aged care going into the future, it is really critical that we get this in-home care right. It is really critical that we make sure that vulnerable older Australians and their families and carers know how to use this system and that it is not going to let them down. So I would appreciate the minister answering those questions.

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