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

We wouldn't have to go back that far—just a decade or so, Member for Barton. It wouldn't take long to find where people were investigating people having kerosene baths and the like. We don't have to go that far back. There have been lots and lots of inquiries looking into aged care. I can save you reading all 50 of them because they basically say we need to invest more resources in the care of our elderly Australians.

I go back to the Carnell-Paterson review. It was completed in October 2017 and the review concluded that the current scheme to report assaults in aged care was not adequate and did not protect aged-care residents from abuse and neglect. The Carnell-Paterson review endorsed the recommendation of the ALRC to establish a serious incident response scheme to be overseen by an independent body. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, in their report on the quality of care in aged-care facilities tabled in 2018, noted that the government was considering establishing a serious incident response scheme, as recommended by the ALRC. The committee also recommended the exemption for the reporting of resident-on-resident assaults be removed. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety handed its interim report to the Governor-General back in October 2019 and that report, as I'm sure people following this area would know, was simply titled Neglect. The royal commission reported that a high incidence of assaults by staff on residents and by residents on other residents and on staff had been brought to their attention. In October 2020 counsel assisting the royal commission proposed an extensive list of recommendations for aged-care reform, including developing a new and expanded serious incident response scheme.

The government has known for a long time, at least since 2017, that older vulnerable Australians in aged-care facilities are not being adequately protected from physical abuse and assault. Why has it taken the Morrison government this long to address this serious issue? Not only have the Australian Law Reform Commission, the independent Carnell-Paterson review, the House of Representatives committee and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety all expressed concerns about the safety of residents in aged-care facilities; anyone who has a relative in aged care is very aware that there is a problem. The royal commission's interim report referred to evidence presented to them that family members had installed hidden cameras in their relatives' rooms to ensure their safety, only to be horrified by the rough treatment and even assaults that were captured on these hidden cameras. It is inexcusable that this Morrison government has ignored this problem for as long as it has. This is about protecting some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Labor identified this as a problem many years ago and has been calling on the government to act. In a speech in February 2018 the shadow Attorney-General said:

A future Labor Government would also look at amending the Aged Care Act to provide for a new serious incident response scheme for aged care.

In his final submission before the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, counsel assisting, Peter Rozen QC, said:

Many witnesses have explained that they placed their loved ones into residential aged care because they felt that it would be safer for them or because safety was a concern. It is therefore entirely unacceptable that people in residential aged care face a substantially higher risk of assault than people living in the community.

We cannot continue to claim we are a country that protects human rights if we are not protecting the most vulnerable members of our society. In a media release in December last year the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety said that they estimate 39.2 per cent of people living in Australian aged-care facilities experienced elder abuse in the form of neglect, emotional abuse or physical abuse; that's basically saying two in five people in these facilities would experience some form of neglect, emotional abuse or physical abuse. I think that's disgusting. It is neglect as per the report.

The Liberals have been asleep at the wheel for seven years. They don't care about older Australians in aged care. In his first budget as Treasurer, then Treasurer Scott Morrison ripped $1.2 billion from aged care. There have been four ministers and the aged-care system has lurched from one crisis to another. Going back to the kerosene baths and that approach in aged-care facilities, back to the disgraced former Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, this is a horrible legacy. So this legislation is welcome, but it does not go far enough. It does nothing to protect the one million older Australians receiving support or care in their own home. These older Australians are equally at risk of a serious incident occurring. They also deserve to be protected by this scheme. Apart from that oversight, I do welcome this legislation, but it is shameful that it has taken so long for this Morrison government to put this legislation before the parliament. As I said, this legislation has been called for since the middle of 2017. How many older Australians have been subjected to abuse during that time with no adequate scheme in place to protect them? There is no excuse for not acting sooner to protect older Australians.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is due to hand down its final report in just a few weeks. There have been 10,144 submissions and 6,729 phone calls at last count received by the commission. Aged care should concern every Australian. Our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles, our neighbours should all be confident they are receiving proper and dignified care if they require it in an aged-care facility. That is not the case on Prime Minister Morrison's watch.

I will be reading the recommendations of the royal commission with interest and I hope that the Morrison government does not take as long to implement those recommendations as it has to implement the legislation currently before the House. I support this legislation and I support the second reading amendment moved by the shadow minister for senior Australians and aged-care services.

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