Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

It sounds quite logical, in fact: more elderly people, more places. It's very, very easy to understand. As part of the process, the current legislation requires the minister to determine how many new residential and flexible-care places will be available in each state and territory for the forthcoming financial year. The secretary or delegate will then distribute the new residential aged-care places among aged-care planning regions within each state and territory. Providers then compete for available places through the aged-care approvals round process.

This bill deals with provisionally allocated places—that is, those places which have been allocated but are not yet operational. And, actually, those places are not serving any benefit to the Australian community, I guess, because we need somebody in those places. Places may be provisionally allocated for a number of reasons, including where a building or new aged-care facility is still in progress or an existing facility is being extended. The aged-care provider does not receive a subsidy for the place until it has become operational and there is a care recipient in place.

As at the end of June 2018 there were more than 31,000 provisionally allocated residential care places in Australia. To put that into context, that's a bit more than the population of Maryborough in Queensland and a bit less than the population of Gladstone. This bill will allow some of those places to be moved to a new aged-care planning region within the state or territory. The secretary must be satisfied that the movement of provisionally allocated residential care places is justified in the circumstances. The department has previously considered applications for the movement of provisionally allocated places between regions. I stress that the bill does not allow the department to move these places between states and territories. However, the act as it currently stands does not give the department that power to move these places. It is one of the joys of being a federation, I guess. This bill will remedy that situation and align the legislation with what is already occurring. This amendment will seek to ensure that residential aged care is available to those older Australians who require it as quickly as possible and is appropriately allocated to address local needs.

Labor does not have a problem with this largely administrative amendment. However, the Morrison government's management of the aged-care sector more generally has been abominable. The waiting list for older Australians needing home care packages has continued to grow under—I'll be fair—the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. The latest data reveals that more than 129,000 older Australians are languishing, waiting for care. In Queensland alone there are more than 13,000 older people who have been approved but are still waiting to receive any home care package. That is 13,000 in Queensland alone. This is a failure of the coalition government, who are now into their seventh year in office. Tens of thousands of older Australians, who the ATM governments have assessed and determined that they need help to safely stay in their homes, are now being neglected by this uncaring government. Many older Australians are waiting for more than 12 months for the package that they've already been approved for, and some are waiting more than two years.

The reforms to aged care were about choice: older Australians choosing to stay in their own homes rather than moving into aged care. What older Australians have is no choice but to sit on the waiting list, pray for help and pray for mercy. As the list grows longer and longer, we're hearing more stories about the plight of these older Australians. We know that the former minister was looking at some interventions to reduce the waiting times for home care packages way back in 2018, but here we are in September 2019 and nothing has eventuated. We know that this government does not care about our older Australians, because of what they do or fail to do. If they did care, they wouldn't have locked aged care out of the cabinet. They wouldn't have had four different ministers responsible for this policy area in six years. There is no continuity. It is a disgrace. Older Australians, we know, deserve better.

Prime Minister Morrison has neglected older Australians for far too long. He refuses to take action in the face of tens of thousands of older Australians suffering in their homes without the care that they've been approved for and that they should be receiving. He has cut the aged-care budget, and guess what? These cuts have a real effect on real people. These cuts are hurting older Australians right now. For the past five years, he's ripped billions out of the aged-care sector. Obviously this has an impact. In his first budget as Treasurer, $1.2 billion was ripped from the aged-care sector. The coalition government is sitting on dozens of reviews with recommendations for action on aged care, but none of them have been implemented. They did nothing. Then, after six years of doing nothing, under four ministers and with news of cuts, what did they do? What was their solution? Call a royal commission. And how horrifying has the evidence been coming through this royal commission. It's horrifying for all of us with elderly parents. For the families that care for them and for these older Australians who rely on their care, this is horrifying. You cannot trust the Morrison government when it comes to aged care. If a nation is to be judged by how we treat our elderly and our most vulnerable, we are failing as a nation. It is not good enough and older Australians deserve much better.

Let's talk about this generation. They're the generation that got us through World War II. They're the generation that built modern Australia. We owe these people, yet the Morrison government is deserting them. In the face of the horror stories about the treatment of some older Australians in aged care, the Prime Minister, to his credit, did call the royal commission into aged care, the one established in October last year. It has now received more than 6,000 submissions and more than 3½ thousand telephone calls to the information line. The recent hearings in Brisbane were focused on the regulation of aged care. In particular, they heard evidence about the sudden closure of two residential aged-care facilities at Earle Haven Retirement Village on the Gold Coast. Sixty-eight residents, many old, frail and scared and some living with dementia, were evacuated by state emergency services.

The royal commission heard evidence that the closure was the result of a dispute between the owner of Earle Haven and the UK based CEO of the facility manager. This dispute involved a demand for the payment of $3 million to the manager. The payment was not forthcoming, and the owner was not able to provide care for the residents. This is in 2019—unbelievable! It's disgraceful that these older Australians, and many others, are being treated like this. One of the ambulance officers who attended Earle Haven to transport the residents said that some residents were crying and screaming as they were being moved into the waiting ambulances. The ambulance officer—incredible work—also said that some files belonging to the residents were not handed over when requested. That would have been health information and caring information. Please, those opposite, understand that our older Australians deserve much better than this.

The royal commission heard that the owner had a poor compliance record, with potential red flags about governance and management capacity dating as far back as 2007. Other evidence in Brisbane related to the care of individual residents in aged-care facilities. Evidence was put forward about medicines, such as psychotropics, being overprescribed. Other witnesses gave evidence that their dying family members didn't receive adequate pain medication. Another said that their relative was given a combination of drugs which actually worked against each other, negating their effect. That relative fell and broke his hip as a result of the medication for his Parkinson's disease not being effective. These are real people and real horror stories. It is awful to think of any older Australian suffering from such a lack of care. I'll be watching closely to see what recommendations come out of the royal commission.

As the member for Franklin said, today is actually 'thank an aged-care worker day', so I thank all of them Australia-wide for the great work that they do. I'd like to particularly mention the two that I recently visited in my electorate, both in Sunnybank Hills—the Carramar Aged Care Facility and TriCare at Sunnybank. I went to TriCare at Sunnybank Hills for one particular lovely lady called Mabel Crosby on Saturday because she had her 110th birthday. Happy birthday, Mabel Crosby, from the parliament. She was there with all her family. She had a couple of other people along—not only a federal politician but also the Premier and the Governor. It was just a small affair! And there were a lot of children and grandchildren. Well done, Mabel Crosby. What an inspiration. I also visited the Carramar Aged Care Facility, and I particularly wanted to mention the incredible professionalism of the aged-care workers that I met there. I've been to that facility many times, for Anzac Day and other things. The staff always show how much they care for the residents there, and it's quite heartwarming—on a more positive note—to think that there are such caring professionals working in that aged-care sector. We now need a professional government, rather than a group of people devoted to being the opposition to the opposition. We actually need people who govern, who actually do their day job.

It is a fact that we need a good government more than ever because the proportion of Australians aged over 65 is increasing. If we don't get the settings right now, it is only going to become exacerbated by inaction. In 2017 there were almost four million Australians aged over 65. It is estimated that by 2057—something that perhaps the people at the dispatch box might be interested in—there will be almost nine million Australians aged over 65. The member for Hindmarsh will be in his late 30s by then!

Dementia: we know it's a problem. A tsunami is coming. It's the second leading cause of death of Australians now. This year there are an estimated 450,000 Australians living with dementia. Without medical breakthroughs, the number of people with dementia is expected to increase to almost 600,000 by 2028 and more than a million by 2058. The crisis is immediate, but it's heading towards disaster. We need to improve and better resource the aged-care sector now. This Morrison government has been asleep at the wheel, leaving the most vulnerable Australians suffering. Many people with dementia have no-one to advocate for them. They are actually the real quiet Australians and their silence is being ignored and avoided by this Morrison government.

Labor supports the current bill; as was said by the member for Franklin, our shadow spokesperson, it is uncontroversial. But older Australians deserve much better. They deserve a government that will stop talking about Labor, stop talking about the past and start focusing on the future for all Australians. That is actually the way to be fair dinkum about thanking aged-care workers. Do your job!

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