Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am genuinely pleased to stand and speak to this motion, and I'm pleased that Labor has, as a priority, made a commitment to the aged-care sector. I spoke about aged care in my maiden speech when I first came into this place in 2019. I told a story of how when I was a young child—the youngest of five kids—after church on a Sunday morning, my father, who was the local doctor, used to take us to do his rounds around the aged-care facilities to see his patients. It's no secret that I hated it. I disliked it immensely, not because it was Sunday morning and I was a child but because it was so confronting, and it was sad and depressing. Even as a six-or seven-year-old, I recognised that. It was almost a place that elderly people were sent to to hide away. I remember having conversations with them, and those conversations just brought joy to the residents of the aged-care home.

In my maiden speech, I spoke about the need for a royal commission. I indeed did support a royal commission, and I support the recommendations that have come out of the royal commission. But I should recognise and acknowledge that, despite the recommendations, despite some of the stories that came out of the royal commission, the vast majority of aged-care facilities or homes do a great job, and the people that work there—the nurses, the aged-care carers—do a fantastic job more often than not, and they do deserve our recognition. They're overwhelmed. COVID made their job even more difficult. So we should acknowledge the great work that they have done. There are problems, no doubt, and we acknowledge that there were problems with the aged-care system, but we should actually acknowledge the great work that the nurses and the carers do.

As I said, I'm pleased to hear that Labor is committed to making aged care a priority, and I look forward to seeing that commitment in the forthcoming budget. But if I could just not so much offer advice but an observation: there are a few areas that are above politics—things like veterans affairs, child protection and, of course, aged care. They should be above partisan politics. They're just a few examples whereby bipartisanship rather than divisive politics should be applied, and that is what I am happy to do in opposition. I am happy to work with the government to improve those services, to work with them and offer policy and ideas that may be able to better the lives of those who, let's face it, have built this country.

I also think it's also important that Labor, the Independents and the Greens recognise that, whilst those systems aren't perfect, whilst in government we didn't get everything right, there was a great deal of improvement over the past five to 10 years. Examples of that include the last budget delivering $522 million in funding for aged care, which brought the total investment in response to the final report from the royal commission to more than $19.1 billion, delivering record investment in aged care: $13.3 billion in 2012-13 and $30.1 billion in 2020-23. I appreciate there is an increase in the funding, but there's also an increase in the population. Over 28 per cent of people in my electorate are over the age of 65. So it is a problem that will be ongoing. We have to work together—bipartisan politics working together.

One of the recommendations in the royal commission is to pay our aged-care workers better, and I couldn't agree more. I've spoken to many of them, and the work they do is tremendous. The pay they get is woeful. I'm probably getting out of my lane here, but all levels of government should be looking at better pay for our nurses for the work that they do.

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