Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's indeed a pleasure to rise in this House and speak about what I'm sure all of us acknowledge is an extraordinarily important topic, and that is the topic of the quality of care that the elderly in our community receive on a day-to-day basis. The bills that we're debating today are designed to deal with some of these very important issues. They impact directly on the quality of care and the dignity of life of older Australians in residential aged care. We saw, over the past few weeks, the announcement of the royal commission into the aged-care sector. This royal commission will look into the quality of care provided in residential and home aged care for senior Australians, but importantly it will also include young Australians with disability living in residential aged-care settings.

We've all in this place seen the many stories on Four Corners, but also, I'm sure, we've received stories and representations in our various offices about the quality of care provided in residential aged care around our electorates. As a community, we rightly expect high standards of quality, care and safety for those in residential aged care and also in home aged-care situations. Our government shares those expectations, and that is the purpose for the royal commission, because it will be about proactively determining what we need to do in the future to ensure those expectations are met. Sadly, evidence to date has shown that problems are not restricted to any one part of the aged-care sector, whether it's the for-profit or not-for-profit sector, large or small facilities, or regional or major metropolitan facilities. The royal commission will look at the sector as a whole, without bias or prejudice, and it will make findings on evidence. Then, as a government and as a parliament, it will be our job to act on those findings to ensure that the care provided to older Australians is at the level that we would expect as a civilised society.

Whether you're a senior Australian contemplating entering an aged-care facility or are already a resident in such a facility, this bill in the House today is designed to be of benefit to you. If you're one of the many Australians with a parent, grandparent or other relative who is resident in or contemplating entering an aged-care facility or is an operator of or an employee in an aged-care facility, this bill is designed to benefit you.

In 2017, around one in seven Australians were aged 65 and over. We know from the statistics that growth in the number of people in aged care over 65 will occur very rapidly over the years to 2031. It will be roughly twice as fast as the total population growth. In fact, this group has grown in size over that period by 85 per cent, from a bit over three million to nearly 5.7 million people. The highest growth, however, will be in the 75-and-over age group, which is projected to more than double in size to over 2.8 million. These large increases are a result of a variety of factors, including the ageing of the baby boomer group, the decreasing of mortality rates, and the increasing life span. It's also worth noting that since World War II the average life span in Australia has increased in males by 12½ years and in women by 13 years.

Of course, as the number of older Australians in our population increases, so does the number of Australians utilising aged-care services and facilities. We are seeing that the range of medical conditions faced by these people is becoming more difficult and increasing the level of care required, particularly for those with conditions such as dementia. This government is fully committed to ensuring Australians in the aged-care system are better cared for, and this bill is an important part of ensuring this. These Australians who have given their lives to building this country deserve to get the quality care that should be expected in a country like Australia. At the heart of our aged-care system, ultimately, these are people and their lives that we are looking after—senior Australians seeking to live out their lives with dignity in environments where they know they are safe and will be cared for with compassion and professionalism, in places where their quality of life is enhanced and, perhaps most importantly, in places they and their families can trust to deliver the high standards of care that every single senior Australian deserves.

One of the reasons many Australians go into care is that their families can no longer take care of them themselves. It's for a wide variety of reasons, whether it's busyness with work or family lives—as many of us know, that's the case for many people today—or the fact that families may be living far away from where their parents are living today. This is a way that they can ensure their parents are properly looked after. Other reasons are matters of personal security and safety because they can't look after themselves properly at home anymore. Thankfully, there are many terrific community groups that do seek to help elderly Australians remain in their homes longer, by doing such things as little maintenance jobs around the house like mowing their yards. But ultimately that is not enough to meet their needs; hence the need to move into aged care. This is why we're committed to ensuring that families can rest easy knowing the right standards of quality and professionalism are maintained across the system.

This bill gives effect, from 1 January 2019, to the government's announcement in the 2018-19 budget on establishing the new commission. This reform is part of a two-year agenda to strengthen and enhance aged-care regulation in order to protect and assure the quality of care provided to aged-care consumers. The commission's objectives are to protect and enhance the safety, health, wellbeing and quality of the lives of aged-care consumers, to promote confidence and trust in the provision of aged care and to promote engagement with aged-care consumers on the quality of care and services.

In the budget, the government announced its response to the recommendations of the Carnell-Paterson review. Establishing the independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission was the first of the recommendations. The commission will consolidate the regulatory functions currently split across three aged-care regulators in order to improve clarity, regulatory accountability for providers and their staff, and certain rights and responsibilities for aged-care consumers and their families. The bill to establish the commission represents the first stage of a two-stage process of reform. The commission, from 1 January 2019, subsumes the existing functions of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner.

It's disappointing, in some respects, that we seem regularly in this place to have to legislate for entities and organisations in our communities to do the right thing by their fellow Australians. Be that as it may, when we do identify these issues it is our responsibility to put in place legislation and regulation to deal with the shortcomings we are seeing in our community.

I commend the government for its work in this space and for its ongoing work to ensure that we provide the safety, security and level of care necessary for older Australians, who have contributed so much over the years to our community. The work we're doing both with this legislation and with the royal commission will go a long way, I hope, to dealing with the issues that we have seen articulated in the public arena. I commend the bill to the House.

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