Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I'll respond firstly to the aged-care packages. It's interesting that you refer to them as a hoax, Member for Franklin, because if you can read budget papers, you will see very clearly that 6,000 high-care places were provided in the MYEFO process. We've then allocated funding for the 40,000 that will be released on 1 July that will impact on the number of people on the waiting list. If we consider that we are moving from a figure of 87,000 to 151,000, then that is an increase of 64,000 over the next four years. I don't understand what you don't get, in terms of those figures. They are real figures within the budget. It is a $5 billion budget. Historically, your side did not do its homework. You did not look at the level of the people requiring aged-care packages; they were hidden in the process where people were allocated and had to wait for an aged-care provider to provide them. We've made it transparent. We'll continue to work through what is required in aged care.

There is also the combination of Commonwealth home support, and the option of residential care. In some cases, families make the decision to do residential care because they cannot provide the level of support to a family member on a daily basis. There is also a $60-million capital program that we have announced as part of the next round of ACAR places. I've announced those, and aged-care providers will be able to apply. When I was down in Peterborough, talking with the rural region, I gave a commitment that we would look at the regions and allocate ACAR places based on those regions, but with a mind to looking after people living in rural, remote and regional parts of Australia—because there is a significant need in places like Peterborough, and it's important that we turn our minds to it.

To your question in particular, Member for Grey, the discussions I've had with the state minister on the provision of aged care within South Australia have been very fruitful. We've talked about state-owned facilities, but also about the need for small country towns to be considered in the way that we allocate aged-care places. That work is ongoing and there will be a further discussion in Alice Springs in August to look at how we address all of these.

In terms of renal dialysis, we've made a couple of significant grants directly to organisations; in making representation for the MBS item, it's a great step forward. The work that we're doing around renal disease has involved many stakeholders. There's been a series of roundtables in which we are looking at the state's contribution, along with the Commonwealth, and at the way in which we coordinate that across the regions that need it. Giving $23 million to Purple House now enables them to provide services in your area, in particular to people who want to live on country. So we're making a concerted effort to focus on needs in rural and regional Australia for renal disease because, in working with the professionals, there is a need, also, to provide an MBS item that enables the AMSs to provide those services on the ground. In a discussion that both Minister Hunt and I had with her, Natasha Fyles was extremely pleased at the outcome of the MBS item, because it enables the Territory to work with us to provide a far better coverage than we have in the past.

The funding model for Aboriginal community-controlled health services has been a process in which NACCHO have been involved in two working parties looking at the distribution of the funding. They came to us with a proposition initially, around the way in which high-performing providers should be given encouragement to expand their opportunities of providing a much more comprehensive and better service, based on the Brisbane model. In those discussions, they've agreed to a formula. We've frozen it, in the sense that we are staging the new system. The community-controlled health services will work with us continually on that process, and we will make sure that they're involved in the co-design of that.

I thank you for your ongoing interest in the issue, Member for Franklin, and I certainly will continue the process I have with you in which I meet with you fortnightly, and I'll keep you informed on the matters that you raise.

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