Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Sure, that support was provided, but the backflipping provided anxiety and uncertainty for residents and providers.

Like the coalition government's bill, this bill replaces the outdated Aged Care Funding Instrument with the Australian National Aged Care Classification, or AN-ACC, residential aged-care funding model from 1 October 2022. This response to royal commission recommendation 120 represents significant funding reform for residential aged care by completing the final step in implementing the AN-ACC model.

The Albanese government promised more support for aged-care providers, but they haven't told us what this is and they haven't told us what this looks like. It's disappointing, too, that the government have chosen to remove the worker-screening regulations contained in the coalition's bill, which were important new regulatory arrangements and were supported by the sector. It's one of the few differences between this bill and the coalition government's legislation. Our worker-screening schedule responded in part to recommendation 77 of the royal commission by establishing authority for nationally consistent pre-employment screening for aged-care workers. Our legislation sought to establish a code of conduct, which would ensure that poor behaviour of approved providers, workers and governing persons is held to account. I'm glad that the government have adopted our code of conduct and subsequent amendments in this piece of legislation, but it's disappointing that the government appear to have capitulated to the unions by removing our specific schedule on worker screening. It is essential that the government stand up to the unions and implement important policies that protect the rights of our care-sector workers and allow nationally consistent databases to be established for all care workers.

Our plan was to have one database, to simplify processes for employers—including aged-care providers—making it easy for NDIS carers, aged carers and veteran carers to move between their caring roles. This would have protected residents, it would have given their families confidence, and it would have allowed providers to know that employees are fit and proper to be caring for our older Australians. Instead, Labor is delaying the commencement of this reform by excluding our schedule, just to fulfil an election commitment—a commitment which, on the face of it, appears to be a carbon copy of our regulations anyway. Put simply, what this does is delay protections for our older Australians. The government are trying to redo what has already been done. We will be keeping a close eye on further upcoming aged-care reform introduced by the government, to ensure these regulations are actually introduced and implemented so that poor conduct in the sector is held to account.

Overall, this bill has eight schedules which directly relate to the Australian government's response to the royal commission. Along with the introduction of the AN-ACC funding model, the bill allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care to publish information relating to the new star rating system for all residential aged-care services and providers. The bill will also extend the Serious Incident Response Scheme from residential care to home care and to flexible care delivered in a home or community setting, in line with royal commission recommendation 100. Schedule 6 of the bill aims to provide consistent quality and safety protection for consumers and reduce regulatory burden for cross-sector providers and workers, in line with the existing regulations in the disability sector. The bill implements the second of a three-phase reform process established by our government to create a new financial and prudential monitoring, compliance and intervention framework for the aged-care sector. Finally, the bill expands the functions of the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, responding fully or in part to recommendations 6, 11, 115 and 139 of the royal commission.

Ultimately, of course the opposition is committed to supporting the health, safety and wellbeing of older Australians. Again, our significant and time-critical legislation was delayed, and it's incredibly disrespectful of older Australians that that happened. The opposition looks forward to the Albanese government continuing the generational reform of the aged-care system for the benefit of all residents and all older Australians.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for the bill announced.

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