Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

When the Prime Minister announced the royal commission into aged care, he said that instances of older people being hurt by failures of care simply cannot be explained or excused. I agree with the Prime Minister. I've spent months listening to stories about aged care from my community and the nation, both the good and the bad, but the footage captured in the Four Corners program that aired a couple of weeks ago was indeed heartbreaking. This system is not working. Just for the Four Corners story, more than 4,000 Australians were willing to share their stories in relation to their care experiences.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 purports to protect the safety, health and wellbeing and quality of life of aged-care residents. It is a noble aim, but I think it will take a lot more than this bill to achieve that purpose. I am pleased that the government has announced a royal commission into aged care. It is my hope that this commission will give families the opportunity to share their experiences. Healthcare workers can share their concerns and providers can outline their plans for change. There is a wealth of experience that the royal commission can draw upon from academics, industry experts and staff with many years of experience. My hope is that we will listen to what they have to say about the sector and how they hope to change the system for the better. I know I have benefited from the knowledge of people like Peter Vincent of Aged Care Matters and Ian Henschke of National Seniors, whose insights and genuine passion for reform are something that I value and values that I share. Similarly, Victoria Traynor and her team from the University of Wollongong have worked tirelessly to establish a framework for aged-care nursing competence. While the framework is still in its early days, the results so far demonstrate the benefits to residents and providers of investing in professional development for those working in aged care.

As I've said before, we must ensure that we are listening and acting on the stories of families and residents. For too long families and residents have been too afraid to share their stories. I also recognise the efforts of the minister and his active role in aged-care reforms, not only with the bill before the House today but also with those that have already passed, such as the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill, and of course the forthcoming royal commission.

The issues facing the royal commission are wide-ranging and intertwined. It will need to review an uncertain workforce, complex funding arrangements, training and education shortfalls, accreditation and compliance issues and consumer expectations. This cannot be done overnight. We need to allow the royal commission sufficient time to complete this comprehensive investigation, but it is equally important that we do not allow the royal commission to delay or derail existing plans for improving the quality of care for our older Australians and things that we can do right now in this parliament.

The Prime Minister said:

The royal commission will be in addition to, not instead of, the actions we are taking.

I intend to hold the Prime Minister to that statement and I will continue to push for consumer-centric reforms to the aged-care sector to ensure we have transparency in staffing. Residential care experiences differ widely and the share of expenditure spent on staffing differs from place to place. I'm led to believe that anywhere from 45 to75 per cent of income that a home receives is spent on staff. That is an extraordinary difference, and it must be looked at. We must have transparency about how our residential care homes are run, how much is spent on food, how much is spent on hands-on care and activities and wellbeing.

With that in mind, I turn back to the bill before the House today, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018. The department said this bill is the product of the recommendations of the Carnell-Paterson review, consultations with the Aged Care Quality Advisory Council and extensive roundtable discussions with the sector.

Broadly speaking, the commission is in effect the end product of a merger between the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, known as the quality agency, and the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, known as the complaints commissioner. The new commissioner will bear primary responsibility for ensuring that our aged-care sector is one that puts the wellbeing of our older Australians first and that the quality of services provided is in line with community expectations. The new commissioner will in turn be supported by an advisory council, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council, which will include members with 'significant expertise in relevant fields'. The commissioner will also be supported by a chief clinical adviser and an expert clinical panel to seek out and receive clinical advice where relevant to the role of the commission. The commission's powers will extend to all Commonwealth funded aged-care services from residential care to in-home care. As of 1 January 2020, the commission will be responsible for the accreditation, assessment and monitoring, and handling of complaints processes.

I want to pause here and draw attention to the fact that, currently, it is the government that is responsible for providing or revoking accreditation of aged-care providers. The minister is the one who ultimately makes the determination as to whether a provider should be granted a licence to operate and, in turn, receive ACFI funding. And yet now, in the midst of this turmoil, that responsibility is suddenly being transferred from the minister's office to an outside agency. That, I find concerning. The government says that this bill is a necessary structural change to improve how the aged-care sector is regulated. But what has actually changed? How can passing overall responsibility from the minister to the commissioner be an improvement? I always felt that the buck stopped with the minister. If the buck stops with the commissioner, I feel that is a retro step.

I acknowledge the government's efforts in recent months, including the recent consolidation of quality standards and the efforts to uphold those standards through stronger enforcement provisions. But this new commission reads more like a change of stationery rather than a structural change of the aged-care regulations. For example, let's look at the proposed regulatory functions of the new commission, and the obligations it can impose on providers. There is no real change. It still requires providers to have a written plan for continuous improvement in the quality of care they provide and it still enables audits to be carried out in specified circumstances. Now these are all clearly good things. But my point here is this: these provisions were already in place when the maltreatment and abuse were taking place. These provisions were already in place when families, like those featured in the Four Corners story, were left with no other option but to covertly record the distress and the suffering of their family members. These provisions were not enough to protect our vulnerable older Australians then and they are not enough now.

What is needed now is greater transparency and accountability. As I stated previously, this is the aim of my private member's bill. And I believe now, more than ever, this parliament should put aside the finger pointing, put aside playing politics with this and work together to deliver the outcomes that Australian families expect and deserve. I cannot see how transparency in nursing homes and in our aged-care facilities is anything but a good thing.

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