Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The crisis in aged care is shameful. Aged care is a particular concern in my community, where one in five people is aged over 65. Labor supports a royal commission, but after five years the government must accept responsibility for what is happening right now in aged care across Australia. Older Australians can't wait until the royal commission reports before government acts. I'm speaking here today as a pharmacist, as a former mental health worker and as a daughter. I want peoples' experience in the future to be better than that of my father, who lived with younger-onset dementia. The government and this new Prime Minister must take responsibility for the cuts—almost $2 billion in cuts. You can't rip almost $2 billion out of an aged-care system over five years without it having an impact on the quality of care.

Central to the quality of care in aged care are the aged-care workforce—dedicated, hardworking, capable people working in very difficult circumstances, underresourced and underpaid. The government's cuts are leading to cuts in this workforce. Because of the government's aged-care funding freeze, workers in aged-care facilities in my electorate are having their hours cut. I've been told that around 800 hours per fortnight have been cut from rosters at the Reynolds Court aged-care facility in Bateau Bay, the equivalent of around 10 full-time staff. I've also been told of redundancies and cuts to rosters at the Japara aged-care facility in Wyong—around 375 hours cut in AIN nursing hours per week as a direct result of the government's cuts.

We are seeing cuts in the aged-care workforce right now in regional Australia. One worker who has been at the centre for more than a decade and working in the sector for more than 25 years told me her shifts were cut by around 10 hours per fortnight. She is a full-time carer. What effect will this have on her and her family? These cuts to shifts and services are as predictable as they are devastating. We must do better. How can we attract and maintain quality staff in the sector under these conditions? Jobs in aged care matter, and the wages and conditions of workers in aged care matter.

I'll now turn to home care packages. There are now more than 108,000 people on the home care package waiting list, including 88,000 people with high needs, many living, as my dad did, with dementia. In my community there are around 770 people waiting right now for home care packages. Three-quarters of them have high needs and are waiting for level 4 packages.

I went and visited Tom. Tom had a stroke about four months ago, and his family were told there was a small window where intensive therapy could have a major impact on his wellbeing. He was sent home from hospital with half an hour of physio and half an hour of OT per week. I met the physio. She was doing a great job, but there was barely enough in-home care to help with showering and some respite for his wife, Coral, to do the shopping. Coral has her own health issues, including a shoulder injury, and is struggling to care for Tom. Tom has been approved for a level 4 package, but, like so many others, he's now waiting to access his care, and he's only considered a medium priority. Tom is eligible, and his medical specialists know that, the more care he gets right now, the better he will be for the rest of his life. He shouldn't have to wait. He can't wait. His family can't wait.

It always strikes me as well that one of the aspects of problems in the aged-care sector is how disproportionately these problems affect women. Women outnumber men in every aged-care program. Around two in three people accessing aged-care services are women. Around 67 per cent of older Australians receiving home care packages are women. The aged-care workforce is predominantly female: 87 per cent of aged-care workers are women. The task of caring for older Australians and family members, often while they wait longer than they need to and longer than they should for aged care, falls predominantly to women. I can't help wondering if the government's failure to properly fund quality aged care and to ensure aged care workers are paid decent wages and properly resourced to support a family member caring for aged relatives is in part because these problems are predominantly women's problems. This government seems to have a problem with women.

It must change. There is a crisis in aged care. People like Tom and Coral can't wait. People post strokes can't wait for the intervention that they need, which will give them the quality of life that they deserve. Our aged-care system is in crisis. It is shameful: $2 billion of cuts from this Prime Minister, and then belatedly calling a royal commission. This is urgent. The government must act now on the information that they have about the crisis in aged care.

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