Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We live in an aging society. We all know that. Former senator John Williams once said to me that no-one should complain about getting old, because some don't get the choice. Of course, he was very right. As we have an aging population, we need to make sure that we provide care, dignity and respect to those Australians who've contributed so mightily to our nation and its interests, to give them the very best care available, whether it's independent living or whether it's in acute care. That is why, on 11 May this year, the Treasurer and member for Kooyong stood at the dispatch box and delivered a budget which provided a once-in-a-generation aged-care package to help our older Australians, with $17.7 billion of support to boost the aged-care sector.

I listened very closely to both of the previous speakers—the member for Bendigo, just before me, and the member for Grey, just before her. Yes, they both have regional electorates, but they're very different regional electorates. The member for Bendigo has a very large regional hub in a division which is only about 5½ thousand square kilometres, whereas the member for Grey represents an electorate which encompasses much of the size of South Australia—indeed, 904,000 square kilometres. I note that the electorate of the member for Farrer, the minister at the table, is 126½ thousand square kilometres, and the electorate I represent, Riverina, is nearly 50,000 square kilometres. Our large electorates are made up of disparate and very scattered small towns. The Parkes electorate is 393,000 square kilometres, and the Durack electorate is 1.6 million square kilometres. Throughout those huge country electorates are a lot of little aged-care providers, and they are doing their level best to provide care and support. They were appreciative of the opportunity to give their submissions, their feedback and their input to the aged-care royal commission, and they were appreciative of $17.7 billion of support.

The member for Bendigo talks about higher wages for those in the sector, and, yes, I understand where she's coming from. But I also concur very much with the member for Grey, who calls on the fact that we're going to require a lot more people to come in from overseas to be able to take those positions, which Australians will not. Even in some of the larger regional towns I represent, it is very, very difficult to find staff willing to live there and provide their services, their employment, to those providers. That is one of the great difficulties. No amount of financial support by way of higher wages will, sometimes, attract the sort of labour that we need to some of those regional providers, let alone the remote providers that may be in the electorates of Farrer, Durack or Grey. Whilst I appreciate where the member for Bendigo is coming from in her argument, it's very difficult for those country providers to find the necessary workers. Whilst I get that higher wages will attract more workers into the sector, it's not going to be the whole and sole panacea for the labour shortage in aged care.

I have a very large aged-care concern in my electorate of Riverina at Harden-Murrumburrah. It's not a huge community. It's in the Hilltops shire. In February I wrote a letter by hand to every person in that community—more than 1,000 people—after the St Lawrence Residential Aged Care facility closed. Southern Cross Care withdrew its services. It wanted to centralise its services. One of the biggest concerns that Southern Cross Care put to me was that they just couldn't find people, irrespective of the situation, to be able to continue to run that facility. It had 45 beds. I was very fortunate to be able to, as part of the round of aged-care services, provide and guarantee those 45 beds to, hopefully, a future provider. Hopefully, somebody will come in. We had great support from Cowra. A wonderful provider in that community—a wonderful volunteer group, ably led by Ian Donges—was going to take up the Harden-Murrumburrah facility, but for various reasons it decided not to.

Local pharmacist Mark Douglass was a Labor candidate at the last election. He contacted me in the days following the announcement of the closure to inform me that his mother-in-law passed away between the closure of the facility and getting some sort of surety of an ongoing provider so that we could reopen Harden-Murrumburrah. It was a very heartrending text that Mark sent to me. He said: 'She was a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Born in 1927 to a Gallipoli veteran, originally from Jerilderie. Until nine days ago she was safely living in the St Lawrence aged-care facility in Harden. The forced eviction from her home caused such distress and disruptions she fell into disrepair, was disorientated and subsequently refused to eat or participate. Old people are worthy of our care and respect. They are not a commodity to be carelessly disregarded or traded as entries on a balance sheet.' Mark was very right. That is a very heart-wrenching and very personal letter. There were as many as three deaths of former residents reported from that rehoming.

I'm working very hard to make sure that we get some surety going forward. It's a microcosm of what is happening across the nation. Aged care is needing our support. That's why as a government we're trying to fill in those gaps. That is why we had the royal commission. In responding to the 148 recommendations—of which 123 were joint and 25 were specific to the individual commissioners—requiring a decision by government, this government has accepted or accepted in principle 126 of those recommendations. In addition, the government supports instead an alternative on four of the recommendations, 12 recommendations were subject to further consideration or noted in the government response, and six were not accepted, including four that noted the incongruous views of the commissioners—Tony Pagone QC, Lynelle Briggs AO and the late Hon. Richard Tracey AM, RFD, QC. The government does thank those commissioners for their diligence and input into that very important process.

The royal commission has a five-year five-pillar aged-care reform plan. It addresses home care, at-home support and care based on assessed needs; residential aged-care services and sustainability, improving service suitability that ensures individual care needs and preferences are met; residential aged-care quality and safety to improve access to and quality of residential care; and growing a larger, more highly skilled caring and values based workforce, which is such an important issue. We thank those people who are working in the aged-care sector now because they do a mighty job, particularly in regional Australia and especially in remote Australia. Of course, the fifth pillar is governance—new legislation and stronger governance to avoid some of those heart-wrenching, very real and distressing stories that we heard out of the royal commission, which no-one wants to see recurring.

I'm very pleased to see, in the 2020 aged-care approval round announced in July this year, that those 45 aged-care places for a new provider in Harden and Murrumburrah and four aged-care places for the Murrumburrah-Harden District Hospital were assured. There was $197,560 for capital works at Uralba Hostel in Gundagai. I visited there. It's a great facility and continues to provide those services in Gundagai. Gundagai, like a lot of other towns in my electorate, has an ageing population. Many people who were born in the town have worked decades in the town to make Gundagai and those other little communities throughout the Riverina the best they can be. In their retirement years and twilight years those people deserve the very best care, and Uralba is one of those facilities providing just that. I was also pleased that 36 aged-care places for Signature Care were assured for a new aged-care facility in Wagga Wagga, to be located on the ground which used to be Charles Sturt University's southern campus. The dream of Cliff Blake and the late Wal Fife was to have that facility on the northern side of town, and it is very much a growing residential, teaching and learning area in the north of Wagga Wagga.

In the 2018-19 aged-care approval round there were a number of funding arrangements put in place elsewhere in the Riverina, including $400,000 and eight aged-care places at Cooinda Court in Junee. I remember visiting there when they were talking about redoing their showers in the individual units. It mightn't sound much and it mightn't seem much, but it makes the world of difference to those elderly residents who deserve the very best of care. Cootamundra Nursing Home benefited, as did Goodwin Aged Care Services based in Wagga Wagga. There were 26 aged-care places for Gumleigh Gardens, also in Wagga Wagga, on top of the 84 for Goodwin. There were three aged-care places for the Catholic Healthcare Jemalong Residential Village, west of Forbes. I've spoken to Forbes Mayor Phyllis Miller, and she is a great advocate for aged care. She listened very closely to the royal commission's determinations and findings, and we speak regularly about what needs to happen at Forbes. Forbes is just like those other communities in my electorate with an ageing population, and I commend Councillor Miller for her advocacy for and on behalf of those vulnerable people. They want the very best care.

There were 50 aged-care places as part of that 2018-19 funding for Wagga Wagga Community Aged Care, 32 aged-care places for Weeroona Aged Care Residence in Cowra, and a considerable amount of money—$3.8 million and six aged-care places—for Woodhaven Aged Care at Lockhart, a community I visited just the other day. For the retiring mayor there, Rodger Schirmer, like all my other 11 mayors throughout the Riverina, aged care is a focus. They want to make sure that their communities are getting the funding and the support that they need, but they all understand and appreciate that finding the labour and the workers is not just a matter of making the wages higher. It is an issue and it has been exacerbated by COVID because we haven't been able to get backpackers in. We haven't been able to get workers in. Immigration has been very, very difficult—nigh on impossible—and that makes the situation so much the worse.

We'll continue to provide support. I was at Allawah Lodge at Coolamon the other day, and the assistance we've provided there is paving around the actual centre, as well as other things, such as refurbishing their kitchen and laundry facilities. The pavement around the facility and a new fence completely surrounding the facility make such a difference to the aesthetics of this wonderful facility. Coolamon is a beaut town, not far from Wagga Wagga, and, of course, it's providing the very best care for those in their twilight years.

We will continue, as a government, to also provide the dignity, the respect and the care through the funding that we've provided in the budget and beyond.

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