Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for moving this motion. Young people may be our lifeblood but older people are the heart of the electorate of Indi. Twenty-one per cent of our population is aged 65 or older, higher than the Australian average of 16.5 per cent. With their children raising families of their own and a lifetime of experience behind them, older people, freed from the strictures of work, make an enormous contribution to our social, cultural and economic life. It's in no small part thanks to them that Indi holds the title of Australia's most neighbourly electorate. We look out for and after each other. I saw this during the recent bushfire crisis, with older people volunteering in their hundreds in relief centres and in the recovery effort.

It's no surprise that older people prefer to grow old where they belong. I hear time and time again from my constituents that they want to age in place in their own home, surrounded by things they love, working in their own garden, being with their pets and being close to their community and their family, with support when they need it.

Home care packages allow them to do just that, while relieving pressure on residential aged-care facilities and costing the taxpayer less. Given these benefits, it's a mystery to me why we continue to have such extraordinarily long wait times for home care packages. While the waitlist for level 4 packages has shrunk recently, the official wait time is still more than 12 months between approval and assignment of the package. The actual wait time is likely to be higher. According to Department of Health data in the aged-care royal commission interim report, the average wait time in 2017-18 was 22 months for a level 4 package. Forcing people to wait more than 12 months for the highest level of support is nothing short of a cruel dashing of hope. My constituents and their families are growing frustrated and despairing as they continue to wait.

Let me tell you about Phyllis Davidson. She's a 95-year-old woman from Wangaratta. Phyllis has lived for 16 years independently post the death of her husband in 2004, and she cared for him for years when he suffered from dementia. Until recently, she has cared for and supported 10 war widow legatees in her community as they aged and subsequently died in care. Phyllis was a matron at Morwell hospital for more than 13 years and she tells me that she doesn't recognise today's health system.

Phyllis, as I said, is independent and committed to ageing in place with the support of her family and the excellent aged and community care team in the Rural City of Wangaratta. In December 2018 she was assessed and approved for a level 4 package. Then she began the waiting game. In February 2020, after a 14-month wait, her family was told she was still on a nine-to-12-month waiting list. Phyllis is 95, don't forget. After intervention from my office, Phyllis was approved for a level 2 package as an interim measure while she waits for the appropriate package—and waits. She waits. Her family are increasingly frustrated at the opaque waiting list, the one-way communication with My Aged Care and problems accessing online updates.

Phyllis doesn't want to be a burden on the system, but in keeping her waiting the government may be giving her no choice. We know that longer wait times for healthcare packages have been associated with higher risk of mortality and entry into permanent residential care after two years. How much longer will she have to wait to get the support she is entitled to? The saddest thing about the waitlist is that the government controls the levers and has decided to cap packages significantly below demand. It could fund more packages tomorrow and reduce the waiting list to something resembling a humane compromise.

Another constituent who is caring for his 97-year-old mother while she awaits a level 3 package told me, 'The prioritising of balancing a budget over that the necessary care of our elderly in their own homes is a priority that I cannot and will not reconcile with an Australia that takes care of our people as a first priority.' The Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians says that the government is committed to improving the aged-care sector and points to its unprecedented investment in aged care. Well, this shouldn't be newsworthy! We've got more senior Australians than at any time in our history; the problem is that the investment is nowhere near enough.

I congratulated the government when it announced 10,000 more packages in response to the interim report's recommendations but the problems continue to persist and more must be done. I encourage the government to increase their rate of releasing new packages to clear the backlog, and if the government cannot solve the problem then we need to legislate maximum waiting times so that in the future older people can be certain of getting the right amount of care at the time that they need it and before they die waiting.

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