Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

URPHY () (): Just a few weeks ago I visited Benetas St Paul's Terrace, which is an aged-care facility in Frankston. I was accompanied by the Prime Minister and the minister for aged care. When we were there, I was able to introduce the Prime Minister and the minister to a range of not only residents but also aged-care workers—workers like Simbi, who moved to Australia in the year 2000, starting work in aged care first as a carer, then as a nurse and now as a manager, someone who has lived that industry, knows the sector inside out and was able to provide the Prime Minister, the minister and me with insights that only people who have been in the sector for a long time and done all those different roles can give about the problems we need to fix.

They were people like Andreya, who is the clinic services manager, responsible for clinical leadership and care at the home. She came to Australia as an international student, completing her bachelor of nursing at Deakin University, and has now worked at St Paul's for four years. She was initially a casual employee on Nurse Bank and looked for career advancement, taking on a permanent role in her current position when it became available. Andreya speaks to the need to support people to be able to have a career in aged care, to see it as a profession that is valued and that people can look at for the potential for advancement.

We talked to Jess, who I first met at pre-poll, when she came up and asked me what Labor's policies were about fixing the neglected and broken aged-care system so that she could decide how she was going to vote. She's responsible for administrative functions in the home, but, like so many people that work in the aged-care system, even if they don't have caring responsibilities, her heart and her passion is for the care that is given in the residence. Jess started at St Paul's on a placement when completing her personal-care certificate III, got her qualifications, took on a fixed term maternity leave role at St Paul's and—again—then became a full-time worker.

One of the things that the Prime Minister, the minister and I know—one of the things that the Labor government knows—is that good reforms start with listening to people like Simbi, Andreya and Jess. They start with listening to the people that live in aged-care facilities or live with home-care packages and the people that care for them. That's what we did in opposition. That's what the royal commission was about, and that's what we're doing in government. You only need to see the travel itinerary of the Minister for Aged Care and the facilities that she has visited since becoming the minister to know that for her this is not an academic exercise solely about implementing recommendations from a royal commission; this is about the people whom those recommendations and their implementation impact.

I wanted to start by acknowledging those three women, who are examples of the people, predominantly women, who work across the aged-care industry, because they are the people whom these reforms will impact and they are the people who are dedicating their lives to creating a better life for older Australians. These reforms can assist in those older Australians getting better care.

Other contributors to this debate have gone through the detail of the reforms, so I don't intend to do so, apart from noting that, of course, an important aspect of these reforms is ensuring that there are registered nurses on shift 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The 2020 Aged Care Workforce Census suggested that 80 per cent of residential facilities already had a registered nurse. Certainly, Benetas St Pauls Terrace does have one onsite 24/7. We know as a government that the ambition to have a registered nurse on at all times at every facility is a difficult one because of the problems in the workforce—because of the 10 years lack of workforce planning that was allowed to occur. That was then exacerbated during COVID, when many migrant workers and people on working visas were told by the government, 'We're not going to help you out; go home,' if they couldn't work.

We know that there is a lot of work to do to build up the workforce, not the least of which is to make working in aged care more attractive by making sure that aged-care workers are paid something at least close to what they deserve to be paid and what they're worth. That's why, as a government, we have put in a submission to the hearings before the Fair Work Commission, supporting a pay rise for aged-care workers. But, just as importantly, we have done what good government does and said, 'Not only do we say we support a pay rise; we are willing to be at the table for our share of funding of that pay rise.'

We've also established a wide range of programs to attract staff and support retention, such as 1,300 transition-to-practice positions in aged care for newly graduated nurses; 1,900 scholarships; support for 5,250 clinical placements; and the nurse retention payment, which provides annual payments of up to $6,000. I have no doubt that the significant announcement made at the start of the Jobs and Skills Summit last week about over $1 billion worth of investment in free TAFE courses combined with the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia and this government's commitment to skilling up Australian workers in the areas that we need workers will go a long way to encouraging more Australians to get the qualifications that they need to work in the aged-care sector. This legislation also caps home-care charges, as the chamber has heard. Astoundingly—and I spoke to the parliament about this last term—there are people for whom up to 50 per cent of their home-care packages are being eaten up in administration and management fees, when it should be about care.

While I'm noting the reforms to home-care packages, I want to touch on the groundbreaking work that the National Centre for Healthy Ageing in my electorate of Dunkley is undertaking. It's a collaboration between Monash University and Peninsula Health. There was bipartisan support for significant Commonwealth investment into the establishment of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing, and I acknowledge the delivery of that funding by the previous government. What that centre has been able to do, under the stewardship of the director, Professor Velandai Srikanth, one of the smartest and most amazing men I have ever met, is to establish a unique combination of Australian-first capabilities in living labs translational research. They use large data systems and data analysis in a way that I sort of understand when they're telling me about it but which I can't pretend to be able to explain, as well as other facilities. And all of that is done to lead research, testing and delivery of innovative solution development for healthy ageing, including ways to help people age healthily at home and stay at home for as long as possible, which, of courses, is what the home-care packages are about.

They're ready to go on to another phase. The Minister for Health and Aged Care came and met Professor Srikanth and had a tour of the centre before the election. He has now been provided with a proposal for what this transformational centre in my electorate can achieve. They want to do more research and more work to prevent premature transition of people into residential aged care, to boost the quality of health care in residential aged care and to build the resilience and adaptability of the aged-care workforce—three priority ambitions of this Albanese Labor government.

Peninsula Health has a program called MePACS, which is a health and wellbeing alarm system for people living in their home. They are able to press a button and speak to someone—almost all women—in a call centre if they have needs or in an emergency, but they are also often able to just ring and check in and know that there's always someone on the other end of the phone who will listen to them and be concerned about their wellbeing.

The National Centre for Healthy Ageing has a proposal to enhance the MePACS response to have a concierge-driven care navigation so that it's a solution able to find best-fit solutions for an individual's health and care needs, including linking them up with primary care and allied health. It's a program that tackles social isolation and safety. As I said, it gives people who have a MePACS device the reassurance there's always someone on the other end of the phone, and it integrates responses with system providers. The proposal from the National Centre for Healthy Ageing would allow rigorous and robust evaluation of health utilisation outcomes and economic value, and, with their ability to use big data, there's an opportunity for it to be translated and scaled up.

They have the capacity to improve healthcare access and outcomes for residents in aged-care facilities by integrating primary care models that link GP, nursing and allied health services. They have the capacity to use their Residential Aged Care Research Network to identify and reduce redundancy in system responses, to ensure best practice and quality of health care, to reduce unplanned hospital presentations and to inform needs and policies.

They want to work to enhance capacity and capability within the aged-care workforce and to establish occupational, psychological, cultural and social determinants of health amongst workers themselves. It's very important to look after the health of the workers. They will look at the changes in health and wellbeing of aged-care workers relative to other healthcare workers and determine the quality of care being delivered to carers when they become ill or injured, determine the burden of disability attributable to work related disease and injury in the aged-care sector and, therefore, improve aged-care workforce satisfaction and retention. One only has to talk to aged-care workers in our electorates who worked through COVID to care for vulnerable people to know how exhausted they are and to know that they, like many others, are struggling with mental health and physical ailments but are often unable to have them attended to because they need to care for other people.

The proposal from the National Centre for Healthy Ageing is, as I said, potentially transformational. I don't just say that because it is based in my electorate. It has been put together by brilliant researchers, academics and people with practical on-the-ground experience. It is something I have provided to the Minister for Health and Aged Care and to the Minister for Aged Care and it is something I will continue to speak about and advocate for because this is the sort of smart, innovative, translated research that the Albanese Labor government wants to support for this country to be again a country known for not only innovation and research but also great delivery.

I'll just conclude. This legislation improves transparency of information. It improves integrity and accountability in aged care so that we know what aged-care providers are spending money on and it provides valuable information about providers' operations. There will be consultation—it's already underway—about delegated legislation to form robust and evidence based policy. This is a system that we have to fix. We can't afford not to. There's a moral imperative and there's an economic imperative. The people we represent want this done. The government will do it steadfastly and as swiftly as possible.

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