Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Since 2013, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government's treatment of vulnerable older Australians has been nothing short of disgraceful. They have tried to cut pensions by changing the indexation method. They've cut a billion from pension concessions; axed the $900 seniors supplement to self-funded retirees receiving the Commonwealth seniors card; changed the asset test, cutting the pension of around 370,000 people; tried to cut pensions by limiting overseas travel to six weeks; tried to cut the pension for over 1.5 million Australians by scrapping the energy supplement for new pensioners; tried to increase the pension age to 70; continued to rip off pensioners by charging high-interest rates through the Pension Loans Scheme and applying high deeming rates; bungled the NBN rollout, regularly leaving older Australians disconnected and frustrated; left people waiting for months before processing their pension applications; and left people, mostly older Australians, waiting for years for elective surgery. Even this week I received a letter from Meals on Wheels arguing for some fairness in respect to the government's payment for the meals that the people on Meals on Wheels received.

This is a government that simply does not care about older Australians and the services they need. Not surprisingly, we have had a revolving door of aged care ministers, none of whom have been in cabinet. That says it all when it comes to knowing what this government thinks of older Australians. They don't have a voice in cabinet, albeit, as we know, over 15 per cent of Australians are over 65. This is a government that, since 2016, has cut $1.2 billion from the aged care budget alone and then a further $110 million from the residential aged care dementia supplement, when we know that of the 200,000 people who are in residential aged care facilities, about half of them suffer from a dementia related illness.

Aged care across this country is at a crisis point. As a member of the House Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, which inquired into this very issue, we heard firsthand, time and time again, stories about the suffering of people in those places. The 14 recommendations of that committee are still sitting on the shelf, yet to be acted on by this government.

There are over 100,000 Australians still waiting for an approved home care package, and the waiting lists are up to three years. Around 10,000 of those are in my state of South Australia, and can I say to members in this House that we regularly receive representations from them to try to fast-track their application. The median waiting time to get into a nursing home is now 152 days. In South Australia, in particular, that is clogging up hospitals because older Australians, who would otherwise be in a residential aged care facility, if a bed were available, are having to be kept in hospitals, and in the process, people who need urgent care in those hospitals are being discharged earlier than they should be, because the hospitals cannot cope and they need the beds. That in itself is disgraceful. Can I say that in South Australia the bed block time is 2½ times worse than it is for the rest of the country.

Older Australians are suffering because the Morrison government is simply sitting on its hands. The stories of abuse, restraints, poor meals, poor medication delivery, poor care, assaults, neglect and so on, we've heard them all. I'm sure members opposite have equally heard them and probably seen them for themselves. Yet, they're doing nothing about it. One of the critical concerns I have—and this was a matter put to the committee—is this: we now have doctors who simply won't go to residential aged care facilities because the Medicare payments are inadequate for the services they have to provide. So, we are having people left in these places who cannot access a doctor. In a country like Australia, that is absolutely disgraceful. We could do better and should do better.

The government has certainly set up a royal commission. My view is that most of the things that need to be done are known by the government and form part of the recommendations the House committee put to the government. They are matters that were also the subject of previous inquiries. So, it's not a case of having to wait for the end of the royal commission before delivering the services that people know are needed, that people have been waiting on for years and that this government knows about. The reality is that this government has failed older Australians because it simply won't treat them with the dignity they serve.

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