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

After eight years of coalition government, the aged-care sector is in crisis. The facts as reported by the royal commission are absolutely clear about that. There are 97,000 people waiting for a home-care package. There have been 274,000 self-reported cases of substandard care, 32,715 unanswered calls to the My Aged Care consumer hotline, 50 allegations of sexual assault every week and 100 reported assaults of all types every week—and we know that not all assaults are reported; in fact, we heard that in our own inquiry. Sixty-four per cent of private residential aged-care providers claim to run at a loss. Sixty per cent of aged-care residents are given psychotropic drugs when only about 10 per cent of residents need them. Two-thirds of aged-care residents are malnourished, and half of all aged-care residents have dementia or Alzheimer's and, therefore, need high care.

So what does the Morrison government do in response to all that? It cuts $1.7 billion of funding from aged care, then kicks the can down the road by calling an aged-care royal commission when it knew what needed to be done because it had had over 20 reports over recent years about the problems in the sector. In fact, it had the Oakden report only a few months before it made its decision, which clearly outlined what was wrong with the aged-care sector, and it had countless complaints and submissions and reports made to it. Furthermore it had a report from this very parliament—from a committee that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, deputy chaired—in respect of the quality of aged care in residential facilities in Australia.

Given that some 64 per cent of providers claim to operate at a loss, and that some of the others, including the not-for-profit operators, put profits before people, the consequence is understandable. Drastic cuts are made by cutting higher-paid nursing staff and replacing them with fewer lower-paid and inadequately trained aged-care workers, who are then given impossible workloads. These are aged-care workers who are themselves abused, overworked and underpaid. They deserve to be treated much better. All of this leads to very serious neglect of vulnerable people who then further deteriorate and need higher levels of care.

Along with all this, the federal agencies tasked with oversight and the care provided proved to be incompetent, inadequately resourced or simply indifferent to what was occurring. How can any responsible entity provide notice well in advance if it's going to do an inspection? Why were inspections never done after hours, when the lowest staff-to-patient ratios were on and when the problems were always the worst? It's clear that we need some drastic changes to the way the system is run.

With respect to the inquiry that was carried out by a committee of this House, there were 14 recommendations made as a result of that inquiry. They were handed to the government in 2018. I haven't heard of a single one of those recommendations being adopted by the government. We knew full well, as a result of that very inquiry—and the royal commission simply reaffirmed what we had already found out and established—that there was an urgent need to fix the system. Most of us in this place have also had our own personal experiences with respect to aged-care centres. I could talk about countless stories that I have personally been associated with.

The reality is that the government knew what needed to be done but simply didn't act; it just kicked the can down the road. We are dealing with vulnerable people who deserve the level of care we would all want for ourselves and for our family members. Sadly, and shamefully, they are not getting that care. They deserve better. They deserve real care, not just caring words, as we heard from the minister today, and not just more pieces of legislation that result in no changes to the care people get. The buck stops with the Morrison government, and it needs to deliver the care that every Australian deserves and is entitled to.

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