Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

The main responsibility of the Commonwealth government at the moment is to get as many Australians as possible vaccinated for COVID-19 as quickly as possible, and unfortunately the government is bungling this responsibility. We've seen that Australia's rates of vaccination, compared to other nations, are woefully inadequate. I've had several representations from GPs in my community telling me that they simply cannot get enough vaccines to meet the demand in the local community. The government have been talking about the additional supply that they've secured, and that's well and good, and it's a great thing for the country. But where they're falling down is on the delivery. They're not able to distribute that supply to GPs and vaccination centres throughout the country. As a consequence, I'm receiving letters such as the one that I got a couple of weeks ago from a group of GPs in my community, which said, 'There are 16 GPs in this clinic and they get 100 vaccines a week.'

It's simply not enough, and as a result there are elderly Australians who cannot get vaccinated at the moment because there simply isn't enough supply to vaccinate those who want it. That's a great shame, because it restricts the lives of people, particularly those who are elderly and are worried about their health and their frailty and, of course, Australians who have other health issues. That's resulted in their reluctance to leave their homes to socially engage. It brings a host of social problems, particularly mental health problems, when you don't have regular communication with people.

So the government really does need to get its act together on vaccinations, and the key to ensuring that we open up our economy in the long term is making sure we do the vaccination process right, and at the moment they're not getting that right. They really need to get their act together, and they should listen to what Labor has been suggesting about establishing mass quarantine centres that are purpose-built, have open-air facilities and are close to medical and transport links, similar to the one that's been operating very successfully in Howard Springs. There needs to be a public awareness campaign. There needs to be a public education campaign to inform the Australian public about the importance of getting vaccinated as quickly as possible and to remove the hesitancy that's been developing in the Australian population, with people saying, 'I'm happy to wait.' You shouldn't be happy to wait. As soon as your eligibility comes up, you should be putting your name down to get vaccinated as quickly as possible. So there are two areas in which, Labor believe, the government could improve, and we'd be happy to work with them, quickly, to improve things.

There's also a problem with Australians stranded overseas. The No. 1 responsibility of an Australian government is to keep Australians safe and provide them with safe passage home when they have an Australian passport and they want to come home. But many can't get home. It's another failed promise of the Prime Minister, who committed to having all Australians who were overseas returned home by last Christmas. He failed dismally in that commitment that he made to the Australian people. There are 36,000 Australians still stranded overseas. I've had some harrowing phone calls from the parents of people stranded overseas—indeed, some of those Aussies who are still overseas—unable to buy airline tickets unless they purchase a business class ticket. They simply can't afford it, so they get wiped and then don't have the opportunity to come home. People have done this eight or nine times. They book themselves on a flight, and then the flight gets cancelled because of the problems that the government has created domestically in not being able to take enough people into quarantine as they come into Australia.

The budget delivers Australia its largest ever deficit, $150 billion, and $1 trillion worth of debt. We in the Labor Party understand the importance of spending to ensure that we protect jobs and that our economy recovers from the recession that it went through last year. But it's what you spend that money on that's important. It's a question of spending that money in fixing some of the structural issues we have in our economy and ensuring that we get growth that brings about equality, better educational standards, better health care, better support for people with disabilities, and better business investment to grow small businesses and protect jobs. Unfortunately, in all of those areas, the government's budget fails to deliver. You only need to look at the government's budget papers to see that. The government admit that, over the forward estimates, real incomes for the Australian public aren't going to grow. People are doing it tough with the cost of living at the moment. Childcare fees are always going up. Private health insurance is always going up. Transport costs, associated with tolls and driving to and from work around cities, are going up. The costs of electricity and other utilities are always going up. The one thing that's not going up is people's wages, and the budget papers show that they're going to be flat over the forward estimates. So the government are spending all that money but they're not getting a dividend for the Australian public in terms of wages growth.

Housing affordability is a huge issue in Australia at the moment. Not a week goes by without someone in the community I represent coming up to me and saying, 'How are our kids going to be able to afford to buy a home in the future?' The prospect is that they're not going to be able to, and that's because housing is becoming less and less affordable and Australia has one of the highest rates of household debt in the OECD. I think Australia is in the top three, with a housing-debt-to-income ratio of 200 per cent. And it's only getting worse. House prices have increased by eight per cent over the course of the past 12 months, and there's no end in sight to that growth. What's the government's solution? It introduces all these first home buyer programs. They look good on the surface, but all they're really doing is pouring fuel on the fire. If you talk to a real estate agent in the wake of those programs being introduced, they'll always tell you that in the 12 months after a program like that is introduced prices will go up. It's because demand will once again increase but the housing stock isn't increasing. Again, this government is doing nothing to support housing affordability.

We're facing massive skills shortages in this country at the moment. Talk to any employer in any main street in any region throughout the country and they'll tell you, 'I simply cannot get staff at the moment.' Why? Because there have been 140,000 fewer apprenticeships since this government came to office. There's been $2 billion cut from the TAFE budget, so people from working families have less opportunity to get a trade. They simply can't afford it. State governments have pushed up the cost of TAFE because the Commonwealth has reduced the amount of funding that it provides for technical and further training. The problem develops in skills shortages. We're not training enough young Australians in the trades that we need and with the skills that we need in the future, and this budget does nothing to help with that. The program that it's putting in place is too little, too late. Its solution in the past has been, 'It's okay, we'll just import foreign labour, we'll import foreign workers, and they'll cover the gap.' Now the borders are closed, it can't do that. The result is skills shortages, and employers, particularly small businesses, are paying that cost.

When the interim report into the royal commission into aged care is entitled Neglect, you get a good insight into this government's approach to aged care in this country. They've neglected aged care for many years, and it has resulted in people being put in very, very difficult situations. Nurses being taken out of nursing homes. People are unable to afford to get into aged care. People are on waiting lists for irresponsibly long periods of time, and, unfortunately, they're dying while on waiting lists for an aged-care package. It's unacceptable the way we treat our elderly Australians trying to get into the aged-care system, and, once again, this budget does nothing to help fix that.

On the issue of aged care, I was delighted to help launch the Intergenerational Integration Initiative at St Nicholas Christian preschool in Coogee last month. The project is better known as Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds, which was very popular on the ABC. I was very proud that the last series was actually filmed in the electorate that I represent. This local project aims to obtain detailed evidence to prove that regular contact between our older citizens and preschool children provides an effective and low-cost way to counter dementia and to help delay the onset of frailty. The structured program is running as we speak—it's every Tuesday for 10 weeks—and it's scheduled to end next month. The focus is on bringing a group of older adults, who are living alone in our community, together with four-year olds in an intergenerational playschool for learning, connection and friendship.

The success of the popular ABC television program Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds has shown that time spent with older adults has been linked to enhanced social and personal skills for children. And the award-winning show is reality TV at its best. I often know when my wife is watching Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds because I hear the sobbing coming from the lounge room, quickly followed by the laughter and the joy. It's one of those programs that is so uplifting. If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favour and have a look at it. The first season followed a social experiment in which 11 preschoolers were introduced to aged-care residents at their facility. The program won an international Emmy award celebrating the best programs from around the world. It resonated with audiences here and overseas for giving a voice to the elderly while closing the divide between the generations with plenty of humour and joy.

In the second season, which was filmed in Coogee, in my electorate, older adults living in the community volunteered to spend time with children at a specially designed preschool, and this was at St Nicholas. But while it's excellent television, the reality is there are no empirical trials that have been conducted with preschool children and community-dwelling older adults to quantify the benefits for participants, and that's where this study comes in. There has been a study done in the United States connecting older adults and primary school children that reported benefits to child reading, and benefits to adult mood, function and, potentially, thinking skills. But that's it in terms of research and quantifiable evidence, and that's where the Intergenerational Integration Initiative, or 3i, in my electorate that I represent is making significant progress. While Australia and the world are watching, I'm proud that this pioneering research is being done in our community. I applaud the outstanding initiative of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, alongside St Nicholas' Anglican Church and Anglicare, in helping alleviate frailty amongst older Australians and delaying their transition into aged care.

We know around 40 per cent of Australians aged between 75 and 84 live alone, while more than half of those aged 85 and over are by themselves. Around 500 Australians a day become frail. Though some consider it inevitable with age, frailty is actually reversible, or at least modifiable. We know that frailty is a strong predictor for aged-care transition. Frailty brings poor health outcomes and is linked to a loss of independence and transfer to aged care. It has an estimated economic impact per frail person of $12,460 per annum. If this program helps alleviate frailty and delays the transition into aged care, it has the potential for significant financial savings as well as clear social and personal benefits. The cost of financing it in the community is likely to be relatively low in comparison to the benefit that it may bring. The research team will spend two months analysing the data and will reveal their results in August. The results of this pilot trial, testing the feasibility of the program, will drive the next steps towards expansion of the program in several sites across Australia. It's much-needed research and it aims to do good for older citizens as well as benefiting the next generation of young Australians and their families.

I'd once again like to congratulate all of those involved in this wonderful partnership between UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, St Nicholas Anglican Church in Coogee and Anglicare, with the aim of helping alleviate frailty in senior Australians and delaying their transition into aged care. I wholeheartedly congratulate the participants, and we look forward to the outcomes of their study.

See this speech in context