Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Aged care is about people—people who we love and people who are vulnerable. Providing high-quality aged-care services to residents—elderly Australians—and assurance to their families and to those who love them is an essential task of any Australian government. Australia, a rich developed advanced country, should have one of the best aged-care systems in the world, and those who consume the services of the aged-care sector should have absolute confidence that the services they are being provided are of an international standard. Unfortunately, in Australia today, there are three debilitating problems with our current aged-care sector.

The Leader of the Opposition highlighted these problems plainly and simply in an interview recently on the national public broadcaster, the ABC. He highlighted these problems that are well known to anyone who works in the sector. Firstly, the staff do not get paid properly. We've got to be honest about that if we are going to grow and build this sector for the future. Secondly, we need adequate ratios of qualified staff, qualified carers, qualified nurses and all of the other health and professional workers who engage with the sector. Thirdly, years of budget cuts have reduced the quality of care and the time available to those who work in the sector to look after their residents.

The electorate of Perth is home to some 1,700 residential aged-care places from the Carramar Hostel in Morely down to Leighton Nursing Home in West Perth. The federal government spent more than $110 million in Perth alone on residential care in 2016-17. But to give us some idea of the scale of the problems facing the sector and facing us as a community, while there are 1,700 residential care places, in the electorate of Perth there are some 14,000 people over the age of 70 in the electorate. This is a big challenge and it's one that we're going to continue to confront in this parliament for many years.

Aged care has provided two women in my life with dignity in their final years. My great grandmother, Rooke, helped raise my father, Ron. Later in life, Rooke lived in the adjoining house to my home and she was my regular carer when my mother returned to work. I know all too well that older Australians are key to raising and educating the next generation of Australians. Rooke was sharp. She worked in the Australian tax office for decades and was proud of her efforts in being seconded to assist with the administration of Australia's war efforts. In her retirement, while her mind was sharp, she eventually began to have injuries from falls and minor incidents. There comes a point for many families where the burden becomes too much. My dad speaks of the pain that he and his mother went through in having to make the decision to place someone that they loved, who had been such an important part of their lives, into care. Dad describes his first engagement with the aged-care sector as navigating 'a mix of stigma and ignorance' and, at the same time, handling all of the personal guilt that comes when you take a loved one out of the family home into a world where the care is what is available or what you can afford, not always what you need.

We were lucky in our family that Rooke found a place that was close to home in a centre that is now known as Aegis St Francis. It was a centre that respected her interests. They even allowed her to form and run prayer groups while she was in what became her final home. She ran the prayer groups as her health continued to deteriorate and she developed dementia, something that affects more families than any of us in this place probably know. For myself—at the time a high school student in year 10 who visited regularly—and for my parents and my grandmother, it was the staff in the centre that made that adjustment manageable, emotionally and practically. I want to thank all of the staff who worked with Rooke at that time. The staff in aged care do heroic work.

Rooke had lived with her daughter, my grandmother Pat, since my dad was six months old. Grandma Pat herself worked in the healthcare space, in the administration at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital or, for any Western Australians, 'Charlies'. After her retirement, she lived as an active pensioner, looking after my brother and me, learning tai chi and doing all those things that many people look forward to in retirement. Unfortunately, just a few years into her retirement, she developed pancreatic cancer, but she continued to live at home. For older Australians, living at home takes bravery and determination, but it is for many the best way to live and, wherever possible, it's a right that we should do everything we can to ensure. Grandma Pat required occasional care and was well supported in the home before starting to go in and out of palliative care. Again, to work in palliative care is heroic. Grandma Pat died when I was in year 12. I'm glad I can again say thank you to the people who worked at Silver Chain, in the palliative care and aged-care space, who cared for her when we no longer could.

It's because of these experiences and those of hundreds of thousands of Australians that I want to dedicate my contribution on the debate about this bill to the people who work in aged care—people like Simone Walsh, who works in the laundry of an aged-care home in Western Australia. Simone was leaving work one day when she heard the nurses talking about how incredibly sad it was that one of the residents who was passing on had no local family. Instead of just going home, Simone went to the resident's room. Simone sat and held her hand for the next two hours. She was there as the resident passed on, just so that she would not die alone. I think that tells you a little bit about the commitment that people who work in aged care have, not just to their professional job but also to the residents they work with and care for every single day.

Another Western Australian, Melinda Vaz, is a worker in aged care pleading for staff-to-resident ratios. Melinda has said that her facility is struggling due to the cuts:

We have a ratio of four staff to 31 residents. There is so little time that can be given to each resident. There are no mandatory staff-to-resident ratios for our industry, unlike in hospitals or childcare centres, so some facilities just cut right back on staff.

She says that she's aware of one facility where there are 60 residents being looked after or monitored by just one staff member during the night shift. This alone demonstrates the need to expand the conversation we're having today and for the royal commission to look at the need for staff-to-resident ratios if we are to have a sector that meets world-class standards. Again, to those who work in aged care: thank you for working in aged care; thank you for the work you do and for the sacrifices you make.

I'm also realistic that the operators in the aged-care sector are under extreme pressure. I've had the privilege to get to know, over a number of years, Graeme Prior, the CEO of Hall & Prior Residential Aged Care, a proud Western Australian company. I've learned from operators like Graeme, people who are passionate about ensuring that every Australian gets the quality of life they deserve. Graeme, in his leadership of Hall & Prior, has shown the true circle of life that aged care represents. I was pleasantly surprised to read, in researching for this speech, about the future of Woodside Maternity Hospital. Woodside Maternity Hospital is where I was born in 1984. It closed and concluded its work as a maternity hospital some years ago. A beautiful building in East Fremantle, it was built in 1897, initially as a residence. It became a maternity hospital in 1951 and is now under a major renovation to become an aged-care facility run by Hall & Prior. This redevelopment will create hundreds of jobs in the construction process and hundreds of jobs when it's in operation, add new aged-care places to the sector and ensure that this beautiful building continues to provide care for vulnerable Australians at the other end of the age spectrum. Graeme Prior explained his business philosophy: 'To me, it is part of what we do—preserving wonderful iconic parts of the community.' I think that comment is as true for the building as it is for the residents and consumers of aged care.

I make the point in this debate that aged-care residents are consumers. They are consumers of a service and they deserve all of the rights that are afforded to them as consumers in the Australian marketplace. I note we've got the shadow minister for consumer affairs in the chamber at the moment, and I thank her for being here for this speech. Becoming an aged-care consumer—

Mr Falinski interjecting—

I also thank her for the important work she does as part of her chamber duty for the operation of the parliament.

Becoming an aged-care consumer is currently not an easy process. There are many complex forms, weeks or years of investigation and waiting lists that feel like they can span forever just to get access to essential services that an individual needs. It is at this time that people also begin the discussion about plans for the final years of one's life, juggling the immediate needs of care services and the important decisions about what happens at the end of one's life and how that life may be celebrated by family and friends when someone is no longer with us.

In this regard, I want to commend the work of the chair of the Western Australian parliament's Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices, Amber-Jade Sanderson. The committee's report, released in August, is a carefully considered analysis of the laws needed to ensure people can manage their health care throughout the dying process. I raise this work because aged care is not just one commission, one council, one service provider or one government department. For people to have dignity in their final years it is essential for both state and federal governments to work cooperatively to deliver quality and choice for all Australians. I note that local government should also ensure timely approval of aged-care facilities to make sure that there are enough beds available in local municipalities.

The aged-care sector, valued at some $17.4 billion by the Productivity Commission, has more than one million Australians accessing some form of its services with federal funding in this current financial year. That's more than 200,000 people in permanent care and 700,000 people accessing the Commonwealth Home Support Program. The Productivity Commission has issued a very stark and firm call about the need to think about the future of the sector, which is, I note, what the government is doing with the introduction of this bill today. The Productivity Commission said:

The Australian population is ageing rapidly, with the proportion of people aged 65 years or over in the total population projected to increase from 15.1 per cent in 2016 … to 21.8 per cent in 2056 …

The more alarming news is that by 2056 we will need to triple the aged-care workforce in this country. In other words, our nation will need around one million aged-care workers. That's one million workers delivering services to more than 3.5 million Australians in 2056.

In making further comments on this bill, I want to commend the work that Labor's shadow minister for ageing and mental health, Julie Collins, has done. Her advocacy for older Australians and the people who care for them is one of the reasons we are having this debate today. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 will establish the new Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission from next year. The commission will have a significant mission—restoring confidence for aged-care consumers, restoring confidence for their families, restoring confidence for millions of Australians. It will also have an important role in dealing with some of the recommendations that come out of the royal commission.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will, fortunately, provide a single point of contact for aged-care consumers and a single point of contact for the providers as well. I think that's something that will be welcomed by many people who are operating in the very difficult business environment that is aged care. The agency will have responsibility for accreditation, assessment, monitoring, and complaints handling. In other words, it will have its hands full! This will cover residential aged care, home care, flexible care, the Commonwealth Home Support Program and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program. For this reason I would say that, when the government considers who they will appoint as the first commissioner, it will be a very important decision for the government.

There are problems that this commission won't fix: quality standards in the sector are dropping; the reporting system is not working; there aren't enough aged-care workers and they aren't given enough pay; and we have had cuts in the sector. With the sector in crisis, I welcome this piece of legislation, but I will finish my remarks by saying there is much, much, much more to do.

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