Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's my privilege to be able to rise to support the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 on the basis that we all in this place care about the challenges, the vulnerability and the needs of Australians dependent on aged care. In fact, many of us will know the story and the experience of putting a loved one, in my case a grandparent, into aged care after having lived a happy and full life, sometimes beyond the life of their spouse, in their own home and then having the task of relocating them in their sunset years into the care of others. That's certainly my experience with my grandmother, who currently resides in aged care in Mount Eliza after the death of her husband many, many years ago. Now she is cared for and supported by others.

I know that all members here and all Australians have similar stories and experiences. Deputy Speaker Andrews, you know, as I do, that when you entrust loved ones to the aged care system there are many issues that go through people's minds. One is obviously the care and support for person that they are seeking care for. Some of it is about the financial challenges that can come with making sure we support people in aged care. But, critically, at the forefront of everybody's consideration is always the health and safety of their loved one in aged care and the need to make sure that they are treated with dignity and respect and at the standard that we would want at least for ourselves. The task for us as legislators is how we provide a system that provides the highest degree of support, care and guarantee to Australians so that they can rely on the system to care for them.

There are a lot of technicalities and legalities around how the system is designed. Some of those challenges are very serious. But at the heart of it has to be a well-regulated sector where people are held to account for their conduct should there be misdeeds or misconduct. Those who are vulnerable need to have a pathway of complaint and need to know that their concerns will be acted upon and that standards that we would wish for ourselves are set for others.

This bill is part of a package of legislation seeking to address those issues. The commission brings together the functions of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner from 1 January 2019, and it will enable a clearer line of accountability and responsibility to government agencies from those who care for Australia's loved ones. It's a simple measure that is part of what this government is doing to support people in aged care and to address the shortcomings in the system.

The recently announced royal commission is in recognition that some vulnerable Australians experience horrific tragedy. Yes, there have been reports from individuals through different agencies over the years. One of the bodies I used to serve on was the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, which supports the Nursing and Midwifery Board, and I heard firsthand how sometimes, sadly, there was misconduct or abuse against people who were in no position to defend themselves by those who were responsible for their care. Many members in this place will have seen the, in some cases, horrific stories on recent episodes of Four Corners. Those cases do not sit in isolation. There have been cases that have been revealed before and they tell a worrying tale. That's what the royal commission is designed to address—to turn a light into those dark corners and to make sure that truths are exposed so that those who have turned a willing blind eye will be held accountable. It's part of a broader package of what this government seeks to do to make sure that Australians can have confidence in our aged-care sector.

Funding for aged care is at record levels. In 2017-18 alone, aged-care spending is estimated to reach $18.6 billion, and over the next five years funding will grow by $5 billion to $23.6 billion. Some $1.6 billion has been provided to create an additional 20,000 higher needs home care packages since last December. In excess of $50 million has been provided every year for dementia-specific programs. A further $5.3 million has been committed over four years to pilot improvements to care for people living with dementia, with an emphasis on the use of innovative technologies. And that's the point. While dollars and cents do matter, and no-one's trying to pretend they don't—we can always have a discussion about what and how much and whether it should go up or down and whether we should find new ways to spend it—the outcome is what matters. The realisation and the value of the public money spent is through the improved human condition of those receiving care.

One of the broader trends, as anybody in the aged-care sector will tell if you talk to them, is that the system where people would go into care for prolonged periods in their twilight years is changing. We, of course, are providing more home care packages so people can stay in their homes longer—to have the choice to do so, to get the care where they want it, to live in the community that they know and love. What's happening is that people are going into aged care later and for shorter periods of time, with much higher care needs. That creates challenges for the system, in terms of design, capital and infrastructure, based on the prolonged periods of time that people stay there.

But more critically, when people go in with higher care needs, they face bigger and more unique challenges. The expansion in the need for dementia support services is a critical part of that story, because people often go in, as I said, in their sunset years, increasingly not knowing as much of the world around them, with a declining memory and with an increasing distance to their reality. Our task is to make sure that we have a system that can care for and support those people at that stage of life so that they continue to enjoy not just comfort, though that is important, not just health and safety, though they are important as well, but dignity, not only within themselves but also dignity for their families so that they can preserve the memories as best possible of the people that they love and care about. And that, ultimately, is what this legislation and this government's package of reforms are seeking to achieve. It is, of course, not the end.

I'm under no doubt that the royal commission will uncover stories that will shock the nation, because what people will see, as we have seen before, is that, tragically, there are times when people are in the care and assistance of others at no greater or more vulnerable stage of their life and they are taken advantage of by those who should know better. Our task in response is to soberly and cautiously go through the evidence and the conclusions of the royal commission when it is completed. It is not simply enter into a discussion around dollars and cents and think that that will solve all problems because, as I've outlined already, while that may be important as part of the story—and it is—what will deliver the improvements for the Australian people and the aged-care sector is a sense of safety and dignity for their loved ones.

More critically, what we can't allow this royal commission to do is cast a dark light, a shadow, over so much of the good work in the aged-care sector done every day because, for every one person who wrongs, there are thousands who do right. There are so many nurses, support staff and carers who every day, through sacrifice or love, turn up in community and commercial aged-care facilities and provide ongoing love and compassion to those people who need that care with the admiration of those they care for, of their families and their communities, who form a central part of the nucleus often of rural and regional communities as well.

As I said earlier today, I recently went to the launch of the renovated facilities at Fairway Bayside Aged Care in Sandringham, just like I recently visited Vasey RSL Care Brighton East. These services provide the most incredible facilities for people seeking to age with dignity, support services that are highly attentive to their needs and that not only fully recognise the expectations the community has of them but also recognises the expectations of their clients and their families, and what they deliver is a service that we should be proud of. They should be held up as exemplars. While there are wrongs, there are so many rights, and the same is true of so many other facilities across Goldstein—and, I'm quite sure, across the whole of the country. Our task, as parliamentarians, and as part of the national conversation, is to celebrate their work, to thank them enduringly for what they do, and to uphold the integrity and the dignity of their profession, at the same time as scrutinising those who have not met that standard. Our task is to thank them every day for the incredible work they do to care, to love and to show compassion for this nation's most vulnerable.

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