Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

What I'm hearing from the government members today is that mediocrity wins. I rise to support the motion on home care moved by the member for Hindmarsh, because there are unacceptably long waiting lists for home-care packages, and they impact my electorate more than many. The population of my electorate is the oldest in South Australia and the eighth oldest in the country. The median age is 46 years, and 22 percent of the people in my electorate are aged over 65.

The problem with growing waiting lists is clear to see. I was contacted by a 75-year-old constituent who'd been receiving assistance with his gardening through the Commonwealth Home Support Program. He was receiving just three hours of support a week, but that was scaled back to just one hour per fortnight because they'd had an influx of people in the program and couldn't provide any more support to him. What is the point of one hour per fortnight? It's a false economy, because what happens is that people don't get the assistance, they do things themselves, they fall over, they broke their hip, they are in hospital for an extended period of time and then they need even more support. It's ridiculous. Over a hundred thousand people are waiting for a home-care package. It is not good enough, and I can't believe that there would be a single member of the government who would stand up and champion this. You have got to be kidding! You're the party that older people vote for. The fact that you don't support them is astounding.

I had a whistleblower in my electorate—a woman who works in this field. She was so embarrassed to tell me—she was absolutely gutted and ashamed to tell me—that they had a person who had been on the waiting list for so long that, by the time a package was available and they rang up and said, 'Dear sir, a package is available for you,' he couldn't come to the phone because he had died. That's the kind of thing that we provide in this country. The minister is well aware of the problem. He was quoted on 2 February as saying, 'On the waiting list, whatever level you're offered, initially take that offer.' What kind of system do we have where the minister promotes that a person shouldn't get what they need—'Just take it. Be grateful for whatever you get'? I think it's about priorities. Clearly, providing support to our elderly Australians is not a priority of this government and I am deeply ashamed that we cannot do more in this parliament about it. We need to be smart and this is a smart thing to do, because the more we support people in their home, where they want to be, the less requirement there is for them to be moved into an aged-care facility. People do not want to be in those aged-care facilities if they can manage their needs at home. People want to be in their home. So I would say to government: 'Make this a priority. Make this a priority over tax cuts to multinationals. Make this a priority.'

I've spoken before in this place about my community of Strathalbyn, after the Kalimna aged-care facility closed, and I want to reiterate that this community is experiencing immense stress because we don't have the packages. The current data reveals that only 30 home-care packages are currently being delivered in this region and yet, by 2021, there will be demand for 97 packages. Sixty-seven extra packages need to be found and this government needs to find them. That's just one town in my community. I dread to think what this is like right across Australia. Without these home-care packages, more and more people will rely on nursing homes for support, but even aged-care beds are not keeping up with the growing demand. The township of Strathalbyn is going to see a 190 per cent increase in residents aged over 70 in the next 13 years. We need more support for older Australians. Older Australians and younger Australians must be the priority for us in here.

I concur with the member for Hindmarsh: this is an issue that doesn't make headlines and it should. We have an ageing population and we are a nation that is wealthy enough and smart enough to know how to properly care for our most vulnerable people. We cannot let these waiting lists go on forever. For the government to stand here and say that they're doing a good job and they're ticking this off, they've got to be kidding.

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