Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

The aged-care sector is in crisis. This is not a crisis that has crept up on us. We've known about it for a while. While elderly Australians are calling out for care, this government has been giving them cuts—and not small cuts, but $2 billion worth of cuts. While older Australians and their carers are saying, 'We need help and assistance,' the Prime Minister has delivered in his time in government over $2 billion worth of cuts to the aged-care sector. You can't cut your way to care.

In my own electorate, there are nearly 1,900 elderly Australians who want to live at home but have been assessed as having a high level of care need. They want to stay at home. They've been assessed as needing a Commonwealth care package, but there is not the funding available to provide that care to them. In their last budget, the government did not add one additional cent to care packages such that people in my electorate and right around the country would have that care available to them.

It is not only people who want to live at home. Any member in this place could tell you of the struggle that they are having with their constituents trying to get an elderly person into residential care. There are not the care places available to them. We welcome the fact that the government have called a royal commission, after exhausting every other alternative available to them, but you can't cut your way to care. (Time expired)

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