David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I represent the people of the Lyne electorate, which has one of the greatest aged demographics in the country. We have many aged-care facilities and many residents living at home relying on the aged-care home support package system. I must say that I have visited many of these nursing homes and residential aged-care facilities along the length and breadth of the Lyne electorate. From the north end around Wauchope and right down to Tea Gardens, we have many residential aged-care facilities.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 and the associated Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018 had their genesis in the coalition government's commitment to improving the quality and safety and the standards for senior Australians who receive aged-care services, both residential and in the home care mode. It is very timely, as you know, because of recent events and the royal commission, that these bills are coming through at this time, but the genesis of this happened long before recent events appeared on TV. In fact, our royal commission into the aged-care system was initiated before any of the recent media coverage of this industry. These bills reflect the recommendations of a longstanding review of the national aged-care system's regulatory processes by Kate Carnell and Professor Ron Paterson.

In summary, this legislation merges the roles and responsibilities of two organisations and puts them into a unified one-stop shop so that both providers of aged care and people who are consumers—namely, the aged people who reside in these facilities or who receive care at home and their families—will know who is controlling standards and who they are to bring up any concerns with. Currently, these roles are divided between the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and its CEO, and the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner. These bills establish the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. The bills transfer the operations of the existing bodies into the new commission. They will also transfer existing members of the Aged Care Quality Advisory Council to the new Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council. The bills also describe the appointment processes for the commission, its council members and the commissioner himself or herself, and the reporting requirements are outlined. They describe how the information can be used or disclosed and what is protected. The commission will commence operating on 1 January 2019.

As I mentioned at the opening of my comments, aged care is a large part of the economy of Lyne because it is such a labour-intensive industry. During my time representing and caring for the members of the Lyne electorate, I have stressed the need to increase aged-care facilities across the nation. The mid-north coast of New South Wales has had an ageing demographic for decades longer than the rest of the country. We have a cluster of ageing people, many more than what you see in metropolitan Australia. So I have been very pleased to see a growth in aged-care funding across the Lyne electorate.

When I first was given this responsibility, the aged-care combined budget was about $90 million annually. It's now up to $130 million annually. The number of aged-care beds has grown. Recurrent spending has grown. We have had increasing numbers of capital works projects that have been delivered inside the Lyne electorate. Underway at the moment there is a massive expansion at the Pacific Cape facility at Forster, with 144 new high care aged-care residential places. We've had expansion at the existing facility in Largs at the southern end. Over on the coast, at Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens, we've had an expansion at the Peter Sinclair Gardens. In the regions of Taree and Wingham, in the middle of the electorate, the Salvation Army has received an allocation of 80 new places, which will deliver a massive new facility for the Manning Valley. In Wauchope, Bundaleer Gardens, which has been in existence for decades, has received another 40 places for high care residential care. In the aged-care approvals round in the 2016-17 budget, there is an $8.5 million grant to allow this expansion.

We've recently fought for and received an $8 million capital grant towards Anglicare's new modern, up-to-date nursing home and aged-care facility at Gloucester. They were struggling to get an up-to-date and appropriate aged-care facility, having the legacy of what used to be a nurses' home, adjacent to the hospital. It is currently straining under the physical limitations of the building because it wasn't really built with aged care in mind. Basically, it was a dormitory for nurses in the old days when nurses trained at Gloucester Hospital. Across the Hunter River, at Raymond Terrace, we have a similar facility that has been announced in these funding rounds. All together, we have made a huge advance across the Lyne electorate.

Across Australia, however, long before the recent attention in the media with the royal commission, the minister and the coalition government looked at the required growth in the workforce. They made a fiscal allocation to a workforce development fund. We've also increased funding for multipurpose centres. We have increased flexible multipurpose services, transition care, short-term restorative care and flexible care for the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander care system.

The other large increase has been the home care support packages, and that is really a very significant increase. We know that up until recently there were about 79,000 people receiving home care packages, but in the most recent budget there was $1.6 billion extra, including 6,000 new high care home care support packages and, over the forward estimates, another 14,000 in total, which will address some of the unmet need, because people want to live longer and with better quality of care in their own homes. It's a 20 per cent increase in one year. As I mentioned, we had about 71,000 people receiving home care by March 2017, but now that's up to 85,000 people at the end of March 2018. In rural and remote Australia, we have addressed the reality that the economies of scale are not there, so there is a $40 million pool for capital grants. Across the whole of the nation, the spend in rural and remote Australia is really significant.

When we realise how many people in Australia will require residential care or support packages in their own homes at some stage of their life, we can understand why this is such an important issue. We have people living longer because of improvements in modern health care, we've got better nutrition throughout their lives and we've reduced smoking. We have done so much in this space because we realised that we have a huge demand coming forward.

The other thing I'd like to make a few comments about is the royal commission. We realised, and Minister Wyatt realised, that there were instances where care was not appropriate. That's why he initiated these inquiries and why he was at the forefront of asking for a royal commission. It has a very large remit. Overall, it's looking at and trying to ensure the quality of aged-care services for Australians. Across the Lyne electorate and even before I was the member of the House of Representatives representing the Lyne electorate, I spent a lot of time visiting aged-care facilities because of my medical practice background. We are looking at the holistic extent of aged care, trying to identify the extent and instance of any substandard care, including, I hasten to say, mistreatment and any other form of abuse, and what the causes are behind any of these systemic failures—if and when they're identified. What actions should be taken? We need to know how to deliver the best aged-care service for Australia's seniors.

We're also looking into the care delivered to people with disabilities, including that cohort of people who end up in nursing homes at a very young age. That focus on people with disabilities and younger people in nursing homes is really important. The scourge of dementia will get particular attention. We will look at what future dementia-care models can be used, what is being used and the future challenges in keeping care accessible, affordable and of a high quality all at the same time.

There is the context of more people wanting to spend their senior years at home rather than the historical pattern of entering into residential aged care at a younger age and spending four or five years there. Now the average in some areas drops down even to six months, or to three months in some instances in my electorate. In looking at home care support packages and how home care can be delivered, the focus on rural and remote Australia is very important because, as I mentioned, some of the economies of scale don't exist in rural and remote Australia. I think that the need for support from the federal government will be critical to maintain those standards.

What Australian communities and families can do to improve aged-care services, and what they're looking for, is ensuring that all services should be patient- or person-centred and that there should be choice for people going into them. The control and the interdependence of those requirements should keep services accessible, affordable, person-centred and high quality. And it has to be sustainable. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, with the increasing numbers of senior Australians and with the amount of money available for all services, with the growth of the NDIS, the growth in the health budget and the growth in the aged-care budget, sustainability and quality are paramount. We can do this by using more technology and by growing our workforce, and also by looking at innovative models of care.

I thoroughly support this cluster of bills which will develop a one-stop shop so that both people working in the industry and people consuming the care in the industry will have a clear and transparent process for maintaining standards and for complaining when they aren't met. Aged care should be high quality. It should be accessible, particularly in rural and regional Australia and in electorates like Lyne. But please be reassured that I have fought long and hard over the five years I've been representing and caring for the Lyne electorate that we have delivered the goods in Lyne. There has been a massive growth and it is really well deserved because we have so many good institutions, but we need more physical places.

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