Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

In homes right across Australia, there is a crisis. There is crisis of older Australians who are waiting for this government to provide the care that they so desperately need. Over 100,000 Australians, older Australians, many of them frail, many of them with dementia, are at home waiting for the care that they need. What we have heard from the government's own figures that were released late last year is that over 100,000 older Australians are on a waiting list for home care packages. Now, some of those people may be getting interim services at a lower level, but some of them are receiving no services at all. And, indeed, 78,000 of the over 100,000 are waiting for high-care packages—that is, older people who need a lot of support to stay at home and who want to make a decision to stay at home for their care are not able to receive the care that they need.

The figures for the September quarter were released, ironically, just after the parliament finished sitting in December. What's really concerning is that we haven't yet seen the figures for the December quarter, which should be released in the next week or so. It's concerning because, in the last three months of data release, the waitlist grew by 10,000. The government did try and do something about it—I'll give the minister a little bit of credit here because he did try and find 6,000 extra packages—but, if the list is growing at 10,000 every quarter and the government releases just an additional 6,000 home care packages, it's clearly not going to be enough for these people who are waiting. We're really concerned, as are the people that are caring for these older Australians in their homes, that this will continue to increase and the waitlist will continue to grow.

To allow members in this place to get a bit of an understanding of how serious this situation is, I want to talk about some of the people that have written to me in the last few days. One of the people on the waiting list for a home care package is 89. She's very frail. She lives alone. She's been approved for a level 4 package, but she's yet to receive any service at all. She was approved for a home care package back in October 2016. She is still at home. She has no intention of leaving her home, because she has made a choice to age in her home, in her community, but she is unable to do that long term without that package. Her family members are the ones who are coming in and providing that care. This is obviously having an impact on the wider community, because you've got all these families who are taking time off work, time out of the workforce or time away from their own children or grandchildren to go and care for elderly parents.

Here's another example. Somebody wrote to me and said: 'My father has Alzheimer's. My mother is slowly dying of motor neurone disease. They are both in their 80s. They've been assessed as eligible for a level 4 package. They've now been waiting over a year for services.' Again, it is the family and friends who are waiting for care. There are so many examples of people writing to me, but one that really raised the issue with me was one who wrote to me about their elderly parents, who are 94 and 95. They've each been approved for home care packages and they've been told they need to wait more than a year. Their 70-year-old children spend most of the week caring for them. One of those children, an in-law, also has illnesses but is going there every day, administering daily care and general medication, because they need somebody to look after them and there is nobody else.

I know the minister over there cares deeply about this and wants to do something about it, but it's not about this minister; it's about the government. The Prime Minister needs to understand how desperate this is. There are families waiting for these packages, and the government needs to do something about it. It's simply not good enough. When the minister was asked, in the ABC article, about home care packages and the change to having national waitlist, he said:

We had no line of sight of the number of people who had been listed and were waiting for places …

That means the government did no modelling on the unmet need and had no idea how many people were out there waiting for a home care package. That is just incomprehensible. I'm sure that cannot be the case. The minister then went on to say:

But the reality is we have a budgetary process, and that fiscal constraint has to be considered.

Of course it does. But caring for these people in their own homes is cheaper and easier, and the outcomes for people are better, than the alternative. The alternative is ending up in an accident and emergency room or going into residential care, both of which are more expensive than a home care package. It just does not make any sense.

We've also got advocacy groups and peak bodies saying that the government needs to address this urgently. Indeed, we had the head of COTA, Ian Yates, say in September last year, 'It's absolutely clear the government will have to bite the bullet and put extra resources into home care.' Clearly something needs to be done. This cannot go on. It cannot go on all the way through to the budget. The government has said, 'We're going to respond to various reviews and reports into aged care in May, in the budget.' But people on this waitlist cannot wait that long. As I have said, some of them have been waiting far, far too long already. The minister himself has admitted that there were people on that list that have waited for more than two years. I am terrified of what the next lot of data is going to say in terms of how many people have been added to that waitlist and how many people have been waiting for more than 12 months. Exactly when and how is the government going to respond to this? People need to know, and they need to know today, Minister. They do not need for you to stand up in here, look at your notes and blame Labor. I'm sure that that's what's going to happen. But it actually doesn't matter whose fault it is at the moment, because these people are in their homes and they need the services, and they need them now. You're in government. You need to respond to this.

Labor's Living Longer Living Better reforms were bipartisan. They were adopted in 2013. We were halfway through 10 years of reform, and you have been in government for five years of that reform. You need to take responsibility for this. And people need those services. It is simply not good enough to say, 'We're going to wait.' You had an opportunity in MYEFO to do something about it. There were plenty of opportunities along the way. There have been reports, as I said, with recommendations for the government to respond to. You should have responded to these. This is getting urgent. Every day my office and my colleagues' offices, as they are all telling me, are being contacted about people who need a package. They need a package for themselves but also for their family members, who are getting stressed, who are taking time off work, who are taking time away from their other family members to deal with this situation, because they care about their family. It is not good enough to continue to say they must wait. They cannot wait, they should not wait and it is not good enough that this government continues to make them wait. It is not good enough at all.

In relation to these reports, the government has said that it's going to listen and it's going to respond. David Tune made some very serious recommendations about in-home care. One of them was that we need a level 5 package, so it will be interesting to see whether the government does anything about a level 5 package. As I said, we already have 100,000 people on the waitlist. We have people who are very frail, and with high-care needs, and having a level 5 package may go some way to addressing keeping those people in their homes longer. This government needs to be very clear with people about how long they are going to need to wait, not simply say, 'You're going to have to wait till May for more packages.' Then there will still be people on the waitlist, which continues to grow. Some of the people on the waitlist are just being told, 'about 12 months'. They are getting no indication—is that 10 months, 15 months, 18 months, two years? Exactly when are they going to get their packages? Families need to plan. They need to know what services they are going to be able to get. They need to understand the systems better. They need to know what the options are. They need to be able to manage their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

We cannot continue like this. People are lurching from crisis to crisis. They are not able to cope with dealing with all of this without the support that they are entitled to, without the support that they need, without those government services, without that home care package. Many of these people have saved all their lives, they have contributed to our economy, they have paid their taxes, and all they're asking for is some services to stay at home, in their own home, rather than go into a residential facility or go and live with another family member. They want to remain in their communities with their family, with their friends, with their neighbours, with their loved ones, and they should be able to do it. The government needs to do much, much better.

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