Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly support this motion and I commend Minister Ken Wyatt, who is at the desk at this time, for his decision to call this royal commission. Many people, as the minister is aware, choose my electorate in the south-west of Western Australia to come to retire. It is a fabulous part of the world, and I expect that perhaps the minister, when he comes back to where he was born in Bunbury, could well be part of the retirement group that exists in my fantastic electorate in the south-west of Western Australia.

We all know that one of the great measures of a society is how well we treat our elderly citizens—the wonderful generations who have come before us, who certainly deserve our respect and our care. Elderly Australians—and it's not only elderly Australians; it's we, their families, as well—expect that the care that is provided in residential aged-care facilities is of the highest quality. Families like us also expect that level of service.

We have so many wonderful facilities around Australia. Certainly, in my part of the world in the south-west, I have aged-care facilities that are providing beautiful care to people. There are the sorts of places that you walk into and think, 'When it's my turn, if I need permanent residential care, this is the type of wonderful facility that I would like to be in.' And really that's what we want. That's what the government wants, and that's what this royal commission will help to achieve.

We know that, as a result of recent inspections and some very well-publicised incidents, Minister Wyatt and the Prime Minister announced the royal commission. There were too many incidents that certainly couldn't be overlooked. The evidence was there. We know that we have some of the finest facilities anywhere in the world. However, what we've seen through the unannounced audit process and the identified evidence is that there are, certainly, in some facilities, very serious risks. For example, a 177 per cent increase in services with serious risks was identified in just the past year alone. There was a 292 per cent increase in services with significant non-compliance. One service is being shut down by the Department of Health every month. There were 154 notices of non-compliance, which is a 185 per cent increase. Sanctions are up 136 per cent. These are the very facts that the government and the minister have been presented with, and it does make really tough reading. It means that some 2,000 residents—out of a group of just over 200,000—who are living in residential aged care and over 80,000 who are living with in-home care support, including those who receive that within retirement villages, were impacted by these incidents. Some 300 had to be placed in other services. For both the individuals and the families, that is a very tough issue to deal with.

I know, having had to make the decision myself with my family, that one of the hardest decisions any of us make is when we are entrusted with the complete care of a family member, because they need a level of care that we cannot provide in their home or in another home. It's the complete type of care that is needed when high-level residential care is required. Whether it's your parents, your partner, your husband or wife, a dad, an aunty, an uncle or even a young person—whomever it is—they are very, very hard decisions. These decisions need to be made with confidence in the care that they will receive. That's what we want to know. When people we love go into care, we want to know they have the right level of care, which is why the government has called the royal commission. I commend the minister for this action.

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