Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021. The royal commission into aged care revealed what can only be described as a national disgrace. At some level, I think that every Australian would feel ashamed of what was revealed. And that report was also a report card on this government. The royal commission saw fit to call the report Neglect. It comes after eight years of attacks, budget after budget, on pensioners in this country. The government is in its ninth year and I think the Prime Minister is hoping that the nation might experience collective amnesia, not just about his failures on vaccine and quarantine but for the fact that this Prime Minister was actually the Minister for Social Services and was the Treasurer who cut $2 billion from aged care. He's now pretending he didn't do it. He forgets actually that TV cameras record stuff that you say and that budget papers can be accessed from history, year after year. He forgets these things, that Australians can actually look at his record and judge him on his record.

It was also this government, in the shadow of COVID, which cut Medicare rebates. These were sneaky little cuts introduced in July to hip, hand and shoulder surgeries, further hurting senior Australians. It is this government's plan to force age pensioners onto the cashless credit card, creating the cashless pension card if they win the election. The attacks on pensioners and senior Australians never stop with this mob. But the aged-care record is an absolute disgrace and it should, as I said, appal every Australian at some level. Neglect: maggots crawling out of wounds left untreated; nearly 50 per cent of senior Australians in care not receiving enough nourishment and food; using drugs to sedate people because there weren't enough staff to provide adequate care; staff not paid a living wage across most of the country; and 28,000 senior Australians dying while waiting for a home-care package at the right level. I note, from talking to my electorate, that many are too scared to go into aged care, so run down has the system become in the ninth year of this government. The government know this; they can't get up and blame Labor or the states, because it's their ninth year in office. It was this Prime Minister that cut billions of dollars from the aged-care sector, further driving down the quality of the system. There were 21 expert reports this government had before the royal commission that they failed to act on.

The royal commission should have been a watershed moment, a moment of national unity and with a determination right across this parliament and the country finally to act. But what have we got from this government? It's a weak, half response that's an insult to older Australians who built this country. Of the 148 recommendations from the royal commission, the government has not even responded to around 50 per cent of them—or did not respond in any adequate fashion.

This bill here implements a few of their responses; just a few. It's the sort of response you have when you don't actually care and you just want to try to do enough so you have some talking points and people think you're doing something. You kick the can down the road, thinking that you'll probably lose the election and that it will be Labor's fault somehow and that you can blame us for their nine years of neglect and mess. The recommendation from the royal commission—and you wouldn't think this is rocket science, even for this mob—said that there should be a nurse on duty in a nursing home for 24 hours a day. Maybe 'nursing' home is the clue here! The royal commission said to have a nurse in a nursing home 24/7. The government hasn't responded: just silence, nothing to say.

Aged-care workers across the country are exhausted, overstretched and underresourced. We saw in the pandemic that they lacked resources through the Commonwealth's failed response in Victoria last year. That led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths. The government didn't have a plan and then, when they scrambled for a plan, they couldn't even implement their own plan. And the workers are underpaid. The government's response? Nothing to improve wages, nothing. They gave $3.2 billion of taxpayer funding to the private nursing home providers with no strings attached—not a guarantee that it would flow through to adequate food or do anything to boost wages; just a present.

Aged-care workers do a wonderful job in incredibly difficult circumstances—it is not work that I could do—and they get very little pay. Frankly, part of that is because it is a female dominated industry. Can you imagine if this was a male dominated industry—if people would put up with aged-care workers and indeed early childhood workers, in these female dominated industries, being paid less than people stacking supermarket shelves? I've got nothing against people who stack supermarket shelves—also critical work—but we need to value these caring professions just as highly. Labor believes that more funding is needed to provide these workers with a living wage.

This bill is flawed. Stakeholders complain of a lack of consultation. The government, after introducing their own bill, even before it has left this House and got to the Senate, are introducing amendments to their own bill because they know it is flawed and they have made mistakes. The government are choosing to implement worker screening instead of the royal commission's recommended national registration scheme. There are weaker governance standards than the royal commission recommended—one of those half responses—and we've got this little freedom of information exemption. Currently providers are exempted from FOI, from families being able to find out what has really gone on with their loved ones. The royal commission recommended that this exemption be removed, but that's not in the government's bill. Major amendments are going to be needed to this bill in the Senate.

Older Australians deserve better. They built this country. They and their families who love them deserve better than this unsafe, chaotic aged-care system under this Morrison government. People have a right to expect that the government will support them decently in their frailer years and ensure a system that doesn't neglect people in the way we have seen. This issue impacts everyone—this shame of the government's neglect of aged care—whether it's senior Australians in care, older Australians looking down the next decade or so and thinking, 'What happens to me?' or people who are worried about their parents and grandchildren who worried about their grandparents.

All of us hope to be old one day, because the alternative is an early death. My mother died some years ago in palliative care. I nursed her at home for 10 months. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life. Indeed, I believe one of the greatest privileges of anyone's life is helping someone who you really love to die with dignity. I learnt first hand just how special the people who care in these circumstances are, the palliative care nurses. My mum was a nurse. I remember the conversation. She said to me when we were chatting: 'Darling, I'm sad to be dying a bit too soon. I'm only 70. But, on the bright side, one of the blessings is you won't have to worry about me with dementia and I won't have to think about going into care or a nursing home and trying to dodge a bullet and find one with decent care.' I don't want other Australians to ever feel that way in the future—that they should see an upside in an early death at 70 because they are too scared of what awaits them in the Morrison government's aged-care system.

This bill does not fix the problems. It does not address the royal commission 's findings. It does none of that. It's a half-baked response—I won't say the half 'a' word, but you know what I mean, Deputy Speaker—from a government that do not care. They are in their ninth year. They've failed senior Australians. They attack them budget after budget. This bill is an insult, and I condemn the government for it. (Quorum formed)

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