Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I too rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021. The royal commission's final report was released earlier this year, and, since then, it has become abundantly clear that the government's response continues to fall short of the recommendations on so many levels. I make it clear that my colleagues and I on this side of the House want the aged-care system fixed. It's been broken for a long time. We need it fixed, as a holistic approach, whether it be aged care at home or aged care in a facility. What needs to be done is real reform that addresses those recommendations from the royal commission and the feedback from the experts. There are so many key recommendations that haven't even been touched on, that haven't been spoken about by the minister or that have been either ignored or only partially implemented. Just to give you an idea, of the 148 recommendations, over half fall into that category.

The changes proposed in these areas through this bill are significant and need proper consultation. Proper consultation is an absolute must if we're serious about getting the reforms right. There is no doubt that our aged-care system is in disarray. We've seen, through the royal commission, some of those horror stories that came out that absolutely horrified our nation. We've seen on TV reports and in news reports horrendous things that are just abhorrent and should not be happening to our older citizens. The royal commission's report would make anyone hesitant to entrust their loved ones to a system where people are neglected and where two-thirds of residents were found to be malnourished or at risk of malnourishment. How can we justify that in a nation like Australia—a First World nation? We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. We have one of the best lifestyles in the world. How can that be justifiable in this country? Why have we got this area so wrong? We need to act now. The Prime Minister needs to act now. He needs to act decisively and correct this atrocious situation.

We as a parliament need to properly fund aged care. We heard other speakers touch on wages, the workforce, training and, basically, remunerating people in an appropriate way. They're looking after our most precious, precious people—our older Australians. These are people who worked all their lives. They paid their taxes. They built the foundations that we now stand upon. We benefit from the fruits of this wonderful country that we call Australia because of those people before us. Nothing will change without reform to the workforce. That is a given. This is a big area where the government must step in and ensure that we have the appropriate training and ensure that people are remunerated properly for the very special work they do. It is special. It's special; it's delicate. They are right up there with brain surgeons, cardio surgeons et cetera. These people look after our greatest asset: the people who delivered the life we have in this country. And we have a pretty good life in Australia, when you compare it with that in other places, because of the foresight of the generations that came before us.

We need to fix that workforce. Staff are overworked and underpaid—I speak to lots of staff from aged-care facilities who tell me that—yet we expect them to deliver high-quality care to the most precious asset we have, our elderly. Aged-care workers are exhausted, they tell me, by doing long shifts, odd hours et cetera. They're overstretched and underresourced. At night sometimes there may be one or two staff members for 50 beds. If one drama takes place, all you need is another one and the whole night is thrown into chaos. Not only do these people come home exhausted but, because they care about their work, they come home despondent as well. Most of the people I speak to are caring aged-care workers—they care for their patients, the people they look after—and they want to see improvements as well.

We saw during the pandemic the lack of resources needed to take care of our frail older Australians. I believe these workers should be paid more and that there should be more of them with the appropriate training, because a lack of qualified staff is contributing to this crisis in aged care. We need more training to qualify staff—more places at TAFE and through training agencies. We need to ensure that we have the workforce for today but also look to the future as well.

In August this year, the Advertiser, my state's News Corp paper, reported on aged-care providers in South Australia that had failed to provide adequate care to their residents. Of the 15 that were listed, the majority were in regional South Australia—country South Australia. The Chief Executive of the Council on the Ageing SA, Jane Mussared, said at the time:

While there is no excuse for poor quality aged care, there is no doubt that finding a quality aged-care workforce outside metropolitan Adelaide is getting harder and harder.

…   …   …

This needs a concerted focus from our federal and state governments with aged care providers.

I'd say it would be the same across Australia, in every regional area and throughout all the different states, yet the government has delivered nothing that will improve wages and conditions for these overstretched, undervalued aged-care workers. No wonder Australians have completely lost faith in the government's ability to run a safe and appropriate aged-care system.

This is nothing short of a national disaster. The royal commission demanded transparency, yet the government is just handing over $3.2 billion to providers with no requirement about how it should be spent. We know there are many aged-care providers doing some amazing work, some incredible work. I visit many of them throughout my electorate of Adelaide. One I went to recently is Eldercare's The Lodge, where Eldercare's wonderful CEO, Jane Pickering, and Daniel Fleming, The Lodge's Site Operations Manager, are doing such great work. They gave me a tour of the place. Speaking to some of the staff, I heard they were very happy and loved their work, but they were also saying that it is hard to cope at times. But, Mr Deputy Speaker, we know that there are far too many other providers that aren't up to scratch. We saw 15 named in South Australia.

It also remains a real concern that $17.7 billion will be spent on aged care without appropriate transparency and accountability measures. We saw reports in the papers, after the COVID lockdown in Victoria last year, of directors and owners of nursing homes who were driving around in $400,000 sports cars, travelling overseas and living in mansions. The money that the government provides to aged care is for the provision of aged care—caring for the aged—not for lining the pockets of millionaires. As far as Labor is concerned, every extra dollar spent on aged care should be going to care, not to the providers' profits or to their souped-up cars, luxury holidays et cetera, as was reported in the papers in Victoria and other places after the tragic deaths of people in aged-care homes.

There is one line that I have spouted more than any other in this place since I came to be a member of parliament, in 2004. At the time, I represented one of the oldest seats in the country. I would call it the wisest seat in the country, because the senior Australians that I represented and still represent are wise people. They've had their experiences. They know much more than most people. They are a real valuable asset to us. Older Australians helped build this country. They fought in world wars. They protected this nation. They paid their taxes, and, as I said, they virtually built the foundations that we stand on today. We reap all the fruits of their hard labour. The foresight that those people had for us means we have a good country to live in. They worked hard, they paid taxes and they raised their families. They rightly expect this government to support them in their frailer years. We have a duty, as a nation, to do all that we can for those people to give them the best services possible. That's what they deserve. That's what they've earned after a life of contributing to their communities and to Australia.

We all know that thousands of Australians are dying while waiting for home-care packages. This is another area that's been an absolute shambles. On one hand, the government says that they're providing new places; on the other hand, that list is doubling just about every quarter. Yet this government has failed to clear those home-care packages. The waiting list is approximately 100,000. Only 80,000 packages were included in the budget over the next three years, and thousands will be joining that waiting list—bumping it over 100,000. Really, we have done nothing in that area. The government should hang its head in shame. Again, it has let down older Australians—the people who have worked all their lives, paid their taxes, protected this country and built the nation that we reap the fruits of today.

The royal commission recommended that nurses be on duty 24/7 in residential care. This is core to improving clinical care for frail Australians. Yet this has also been ignored. They've done the same with the commission's recommendation to increase the mandatory care minutes in residential aged care. Their promise of mandatory care minutes for each resident is full of holes. It doesn't meet the royal commission's recommendations. We know that cleaning and some admin, maybe, will be included in care minutes. How can this be good enough? How can this be part of the actual care that a senior person requires in a facility? Time and time again I've stood in this place calling for more respect and dignity for older Australians. They built this country. They've contributed all their lives to our economy and our society. It is now our turn to give back to those people. They deserve to know that the government will support them in their final years. As long as I'm in this place, I'll keep on repeating those words. We have a duty to look after senior Australians.

This government has overseen a system in which around 30 per cent of older people in aged care, almost one in three, experience some form of substandard care, for example, excessive use of physical and chemical restraints. That absolutely robs older Australians of their dignity and autonomy in their final months. Older people with mental health issues, particularly those suffering from the later stages of dementia, are often heavily medicated or physically restrained. In fact, in the final three months of 2019-20, residential aged-care services made 24,681 reports of intent to restrain and 62,800 reports of physical-restraint devices. To me, that sounds like a system that is strained and understaffed, with employees who are worked way too hard—to the bone—and are not paid enough. As a result, staff cannot adequately respond to residents' complex needs.

The Morrison government has consistently let us down and failed senior Australians. As Treasurer, Scott Morrison—the Prime Minister today—actually cut funding, so the record proves that he can't be trusted to fix the aged-care system. We've neglected older Australians. This government has neglected them, and the aged-care system has neglected them, for eight long years. It's a national disgrace. This government has failed to listen to Australians in aged care, to their families and to the system's workforce, and they've failed to deliver proper reform. The government's response to the royal commission hasn't fixed aged care, and it must be fixed. It's certain that another three years of this government won't fix it.

This is an issue that impacts all of us. We will all be old one day, and we will all be facing these same disasters. Labor deeply believes that those who have built this country and earned our respect deserve so much better from the system, and not just in lip service. But this government never hesitates to hurt our most vulnerable citizens, whether it's robodebt and the merciless way they went after people with often-fictitious debts or whether it's pensioners who are hurting from cuts to their concessions or cuts to Medicare. It's always the most vulnerable citizens who cop it from this government. It's pretty clear who this government cares about. It's certainly not about the lower end of town.

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