Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's been much debate from both sides of the House on this important legislation, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018. Whilst Labor will be supporting these bills, it would have been better if I were speaking in this place with both major parties on a bipartisan unity ticket on the issue of giving our eldest Australians the care they deserve. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The government's actions on this national crisis could be considered somewhat too little too late. There are around 1.3 million Australians who are currently receiving some form of aged care, which is provided by around 400,000 nurses and carers. By 2056 it's projected the aged-care workforce will need to triple, with an additional one million workers required to deliver services. We ensure that our aged-care system is properly funded and prioritised to benefit not only our current eldest Australians but for future generations to come.

When our parents and grandparents begin the next phase in their life with aged care, we should know for certain that they are comfortable, they are cared for and they are safe. Last month on Four Corners we saw, as we've heard in this debate so far, the horrors that are facing millions of elderly Australians in aged care. They were deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable. In my opinion, it is indeed a national shame that these types of behaviour have been left unchecked. But I want to be really clear that this is not new information. The Morrison government has known about these types of injustices for years but have paid lip service rather than deliver any sort of decisive action to fix it. For example, we've heard from the previous speaker about the Oakden nursing home in Australia early last year. In response to Oakden, we know there was a Senate inquiry. This Senate inquiry report triggered the government to commission the Review of National Aged Care Quality Regulatory Processes, better known as the Carnell-Paterson review, which was handed to the then Turnbull government on 23 October 2017, almost exactly one year ago.

In fact, as the shadow minister and the member for Franklin stated yesterday, the government has had on its desk more than one dozen reports into Australia's aged-care system. One, of course, is the Carnell-Paterson report into Oakden, but, to date, only one of the 10 recommendations has been partially implemented with legislation in this place at the moment. There are a range of other recommendations that need to be implemented that we are still waiting for. We've had the David Tune report into aged-care services in Australia, for which the government has responded to 18 of 38 recommendations. Another 20 are yet to be dealt with. Despite all of this, when the Leader of the Opposition said in April this year that Australia's aged-care industry was a 'national crisis', members of the government refused to pay any attention and just continued with lip-service. The so-called Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care even had the audacity to say that this statement was 'verging on the abuse of elder Australians'. It just goes to show how much the government sticks its head in the sand and refuses to acknowledge how bad the crisis has actually become.

These are some of the nation's most vulnerable people, who, rather than receiving the care they need and deserve, are instead being exploited and taken advantage of. Australians are right to be appalled by the shocking stories we've seen and by the crisis in our nation's aged-care system, particularly the standard of care delivered in some nursing homes. The aged-care providers must take responsibility for this but so too should the Prime Minister and the government. The lack of response in relation to any reform fits a disturbing pattern of cover-ups and inaction on aged care from successive Liberal governments. It is deeply disappointing. There are dozens of reviews and reports on aged care that have been ignored by the government.

What is worse is that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments have shown a complete lack of commitment to Australia's aged-care system by cutting billions from it. I've been listening to what members of the government have been saying in this debate today and there's been one thing missing: an apology—members of the government getting on their feet and apologising for not taking action sooner. I'm not going to cut it in any way, shape or form that somehow the government have done the right thing here. They have been dragged kicking and screaming, just like any other issue they've got to deal with. And we've never heard the minister in this parliament get up and apologise for not taking action sooner. We've never had the minister walk to the dispatch box and actually outline the reasons why he didn't take action sooner.

The facts are very clear: when this Prime Minister was Treasurer, he cut $1.2 billion from aged care in his first budget. A cut in size has consequences, and we are seeing these consequences play out in reality today. This is nothing you can sweep under the carpet. The Prime Minister can't revel in the fact that we now have a royal commission when year after year it was his government, and every single member of the government, that voted to take away funding and that didn't take action on these issues seriously. Rather than dealing with this growing epidemic head-on, it is deeply concerning that the government have responded with cuts, not compassion. We know this is nothing new for the LNP in this country. This goes hand in hand with cuts to schools, cuts to TAFE, cuts to hospitals; the list goes on and on. Every member of the government should be ashamed of themselves. They should be embarrassed and they should get up in this chamber and apologise to older Australians.

It is sadly inevitable that standards in the care of older Australians have begun to slip under the weight of these cuts. You cannot cut $1.2 billion from the aged-care sector in this country without there being consequences. And then the government say, 'Oh, yes, it's all terrible. We are deeply concerned about older Australians.' What a load of rot and what a load of rubbish. If they were concerned about older Australians, why did every single member of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments cut funding to aged care? Stony silence, as always. It took the airing of the Four Corners report to have the Prime Minister jump into action. It was clear to see in that program that the current regulatory framework that should be protecting older Australians in care is not working. This is despite the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care saying the complete opposite.

Labor has repeatedly raised public concerns about the lack of transparency and the handling of reporting and complaints made against residential aged-care facilities. We know there are doctors, nurses, carers and health professionals who work hard to deliver care to older Australians each and every day. We recognise that every day around the country the majority of older Australians are treated with care and respect at residential aged-care facilities. But anyone who watched the Four Corners program would be genuinely moved by the stories told by staff and families about those not receiving this care, and it is clear they were let down. But of greater concern to their loved ones was that they did not get the care that they needed.

While Labor supports a royal commission into the abuse and cover-ups of the aged-care sector, millions of Australians simply deserve much more from this out-of-touch government, rather than waiting for the royal commission to finish before they start fixing the crisis. What we as a parliament need to make sure of and what the government need to make sure of is that we don't wait until the final report in 2020 before acting, because these issues are real and they are happening now, just like the massive blowout in the waiting list for appropriate home care packages. First it was 80,000, then it jumped to 108,000, and the most recent data tells us there are now 121,000 older Australians waiting for the approval of home care packages. This includes 95,000 older Australians waiting on this list with high-care needs, many with dementia, and around 56,000 older Australians who have no home care packages at all.

Our national aged-care system has become almost diabolical because of this government's cuts and neglect. There is no other way to look at it. These might sound like harsh words, but when you talk to healthcare professionals—and one of the first things I did when I was a candidate, before office, was to go and visit and meet with aged-care workers because I wanted to hear what a life in their shoes was, before I was elected. I've got a number of aged-care facilities in my electorate, and today I place on record the hard work and the dedication of those men and women who care for the most frail and vulnerable in my community. I salute them. I acknowledge the work that they do, and I pay them tribute in this parliament on behalf of the people that they care for. We recognise and thank them for the work that they do.

The most recent home care package data was delayed by more than a month and released under the cover of the AFL and NRL grand finals weekend. What a cop-out. They are a government who are so ashamed of what they have delivered for elderly Australians that they will do anything to hide from it. As the list grows longer and longer, fresh stories emerge daily of older Australians waiting for care. It's simply unacceptable. The government will tell you that they are doing something about it. They are taking action to solve the crisis which has come at their own hands. How are they doing this? They are doing it by funding just 14,000 new in home care packages over four years. This is laughable. We know that the latest data on home care packages reveals that the waitlist has grown by a further 13,000 in just three months. This is not a solution; this is a slap in the face to older Australians, who continue to wait six months, 12 months or even two years for appropriate care.

When you break it down, the 14,000 places announced by the government equate to just 23 places per electorate per year. That's 23 in my electorate and 23 in the electorates of the member for Macquarie, the member for Wills, the member for Burt and the member for Lingiari. We say that's unacceptable. I want members of the government in the chamber today to answer this question—through you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Do they think that's acceptable? Do they think that offering just 23 places in their electorate is somehow a job well done? It's not. It's a joke. We know that. Outside of this chamber, if the government wasn't so busy destroying itself, blowing itself up, fighting amongst itself, voting for white supremacy motions in the Senate and making all of the administrative errors that seem to happen day after day, which is an excuse for a government, it should actually take this issue seriously.

This is all in stark contrast to this side of the House. Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, announced in his budget reply speech earlier this year that under Labor:

… tackling dementia and delivering better aged care will be a national priority backed by real resources …

This is backed up by the letter that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister wrote to the Prime Minister last month to state Labor's support for the royal commission but at the same time to question whether the scope is broad enough to capture the full picture of what is happening to our oldest Australians. As I said, while the royal commission is a step in the right direction, it will not examine the impacts of reduced funding through the Aged Care Funding Instrument or the inadequacies of short- and long-term funding of the aged-care sector.

Labor also remains committed to establishing a royal commission into violence towards and abuse of people with disability. It's inevitable that the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety will consider issues that relate to people with a disability who reside in aged-care facilities, whose stories and experiences should also be taken into consideration for future development.

On this side of the House, we know what it takes to deliver real quality aged care to elderly Australians, because, unlike those opposite, we actually get out into the community and speak with older Australians, their families, their carers and the staff who work in aged-care facilities. I've held a number of visits into the residential facilities in my electorate and was delighted to host the shadow minister for ageing, the member for Franklin, who did just this, in my electorate. We visited a number of aged-care facilities and retirement locations in my electorate: a great new location in Springfield; Sinnamon Village, a terrific village; and a new nursing home facility at Jindalee. We heard from residents and staff about the enormous pressure and strains that those in aged care are under, particularly seniors who are relying on government support. That's what real action to improve our aged-care system looks like: getting out into the community and listening to stories of older Australians firsthand.

My mother resides in a residential aged-care facility. I want the best support and care for her. She lives in a place called Bolton Clarke, formerly known as Carrington Retirement Village, in the suburb of Parkinson in Brisbane. Today, with the time I have remaining, I want to acknowledge the carers, the nurses, all the ancillary support staff, the OTs, the extra support and the diversional therapy staff—all the great and wonderful men and women who turn up day in and day out to look after my mother and her neighbours in the village she lives in. They do a wonderful job. They talk to me about the pressures that they are under. When I say, 'What do you want government to do?' they simply say, 'We want respect and we want resources.'

Now, we've got an opportunity to work in a bipartisan manner around aged care in Australia. It's time the Morrison government heard the message. More needs to be done. We cannot simply wait for the findings of the royal commission. We've got to take issues seriously. Stop cutting funds to aged care in Australia. Start listening to those in the sector, because my loved ones and all other loved ones in Australia deserve nothing less.

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