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

I speak today on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Serious Incident Response Scheme and Other Measures) Bill 2020. I want to start by pointing out something that occurs in my family, and that is that my two sons, aged 12 and 15, call me a boomer. They also call my wife a boomer, who's only a year younger than me. I'm 55. I want to put on the record that I am not a baby boomer. I am actually too young to be a baby boomer. The reason I take that sort of approach is to point out some facts. The reason we have the term 'boomers'—apart from my children trying to insult me, and I'm talking about you, Stanley and Leo—is that after World War II, after six years of world war, there was an explosion in the number of children in Australia. That generation are called baby boomers.

We hear people opposite saying that there's record funding. They go on about the increase in the number of home-care packages et cetera. I just want to make very clear upfront that the reason there are record numbers is that there are more seniors. The baby boomers are moving through the system. World War II was a long time ago, and we have more Australians who are baby boomers. We hear those opposite talking about the incredible new numbers—there being one-third more et cetera—but it needs to be put in the context that there are more elderly Australians. That's why governments are not to be commended for just doing their job but should be called out—and I notice that the shadow minister did that very well in her opening remarks—for not implementing the recommendations that a responsible government would do.

This bill will require approved providers of residential aged-care facilities to manage incidents and take reasonable steps to prevent incidents. This includes through implementing and maintaining effective organisationwide governance systems for the management and reporting of incidents of abuse and neglect. It will establish the Serious Incident Response Scheme. This bill will expand the powers of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to enforce the responsibilities of aged-care providers. Currently aged-care providers are required to report incidents, suspicions or allegations of assault on residents to local police and to the commission within 24 hours. Last year there were 5,717 notifications of assault under the act. Last year there were 244,363 people in permanent residential aged care. This area of responsibility rests with the Commonwealth government. There is currently an exemption from reporting incidents of assault where the perpetrator is another resident with a cognitive or mental impairment. On one level this is a practical response, but I do stress and point out that such victims still have human rights.

In 2019 KPMG completed a study commissioned by the Department of Health. It estimated that, in a year, there were more than 50,000 incidents of assault on residents that were not reported. As I said, they should notify the commission and the local police. Even before the KPMG study was completed we knew there was a problem in aged-care facilities. George Brandis, who recently visited Australia, in his time as Attorney-General commissioned the ALRC to inquire into and report on existing laws to prevent elder abuse. The ALRC handed down its report in May 2017. The ALRC report from 2017 recommended the Serious Incident Response Scheme, which would require reporting of an expanded list of incidents and be monitored by an independent oversight body.

The terrible abuse uncovered at the Oakden nursing home in South Australia shocked the nation. A review of the nursing home by the state's chief psychiatrist was described as a 'deeply troubling report'. The Oakden facility was closed in 2017. So there have been some very quick kneejerk reactions from those opposite, but good government is much slower. Any time that there's an image in the media, the image trumps the actual carrying out of responsible government. Following the failures identified at the Oakden facility, the Commonwealth government commissioned the independent Review of National Aged Care Quality Regulatory Processes, or the Carnell-Paterson review. Without taking away from the fine work in that report, I think that we could easily list 50 inquiries into aged care.

See this speech in context