Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There can be no doubt that the aged-care sector is in absolute crisis. It's a crisis of confidence and a crisis of care. The decision by the Morrison government to send the Australian Defence Force into aged care puts it absolutely beyond a shadow of doubt that aged care in Australia is in crisis. But it's not just the pandemic; it's nine years of disgraceful neglect of senior Australians. We had a royal commission report, costing $104 million, with an inquiry that went for two years, that told us that two-thirds of residents in aged care today are malnourished. They are literally starving in the care of their own government. That royal commission report was tossed aside by Scott Morrison, with barely any of the recommendations fully implemented to date. This is the point: as Australians, do we value older people as they age? And do we value and respect the people who are caring for them?

I give a voice to aged-care workers in Gilmore, who are telling me about their everyday experiences. Susan is an assistant in nursing. Susan said to me: 'We've got the government telling us that we're managing. We're not. We've got the government saying everything's fine. It's not. They've offered $800, which is a slap in the face. None of us work full time, only part time, so there's no way that we're even going to get the $800. And, besides that, we want the money to go into care. We want more staff. We want ratios. There remains no law as to having a registered nurse on site 24/7. How do you manage without a registered nurse? What do you do when nobody is there for 60 people? What do I do?' Susan exclaims. 'I can't just turn and walk away. It's affecting all the residents. They're frightened.'

During COVID, at least a quarter of the aged-care workforce has gone, and they can't replace them. In January the sector estimated that about 140,000 shifts—about a quarter of the shifts—were going unfilled. The Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews, has talked about the surge workforce. Putting things in perspective, this is filling about 1,000 shifts a week, or less than one per cent of the demand.

I'm glad that, after delaying too long, the Prime Minister has finally seen some sense and brought in the emergency support of the Australian Defence Force. But unfortunately, with this Prime Minister, it's always too little, too late. What has he been doing for the last six weeks while this emergency situation has persisted in aged care? We saw Richard Colbeck at the cricket and Scott Morrison doing photo ops in hairdressing salons, while older Australians sat in aged care not being properly cared for. Clearly the government needs to do much more.

Glen is a registered nurse who works in aged care. He normally works locally in Gilmore but, due to COVID, he's part of a flying squad working in aged-care homes with COVID outbreaks. Glen says: 'The outbreak infects the residents and the outbreak affects the staff. When staff get infected they have to stay off the roster, and you have no capacity to deliver the services that you need to deliver.' Glen says: 'There is no way you can deliver the service safely and with quality.' In the first fortnight of last month, Glen put in 184 hours, which is way over his normal workload. This fortnight, Glen will work another 144 hours, just to keep the place functioning—not to deliver the model of care but just to keep things functioning. Glen says there is a very simple solution to get the resources we need. The simplest solution would have been not to neglect the aged-care system for all those years. The second solution would have been to act on the 120 recommendations of the aged-care royal commission.

The further tragedy here is that this was foreseeable. There is not one aspect of this calamity that could not have been forecast by those working in the industry. The medical profession, the nursing profession and the carers have been flagging the problem since the beginning of the pandemic and have been ignored.

Aged-care workers are overworked and undervalued. Scott Morrison has failed aged-care workers. They are doing their best but they are exhausted, running out of PPE and don't have access to RATs. The years of government neglect experienced by the aged-care system is culminating in the crisis today. I implore the government to do more before it's too late.

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