Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

MILLER-FROST () (): I thank the member for Mayo for this private member's motion and recognise her concern with practices in the retirement village sector. I certainly share her concerns and recognise that with our ageing population—and, specifically, with the baby boomer cohort continuing to move into retirement age—retirement villages are going to be increasingly under pressure, and that the practices of the retirement villages will be affecting more and more of our community. In Boothby, we currently have around 38,000 people of retirement age, which is 21 per cent of the population, and, obviously, we expect that to increase over time.

As the member notes in her motion, retirement villages are currently regulated through various arrangements of the state and territory governments. The federal government does not regulate retirement homes. Under the Aged Care Act 1997, the federal aged-care regulator, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, is only responsible for approved providers, being those aged-care facilities that receive Commonwealth subsidies. We do, however, recognise that many people living in retirement villages often access Commonwealth funded home-care packages and other supports, and this can be a very important part of enabling them to continue to live independently and safely for as long as possible.

To this end, the government is committed to implementing the aged-care royal commission recommendations. Within our first six months in office we addressed 37 royal commission recommendations, almost four times as many as the previous government managed and in about a third of the time. This has included introducing caps for home-care fees, to stop rorts; banning exit fees from home-care packages; and budget measures to introduce an aged-care complaints commissioner to give older people and their families a voice. We've also supported aged-care workers' fight for fairer wages at the Fair Work Commission, resulting in a 15 per cent pay rise for this dedicated workforce from 1 July this year. This much-needed pay rise for workers will be crucial in making sure that we have the workforce we need to continue to care for older Australians, both through home care and in residential aged-care homes.

With more than five million Australians either approaching or in retirement now, and with many of them having more financial resources than previous retirees, thanks to superannuation, it is important that retirees get good information and advice before entering into agreements with retirement villages, which can be very complex agreements. Many of these retirement villages are excellent and do the right thing, but, as with everything, there are those that leave a lot to be desired. As I understand it, there is a legal definition of what is or is not a financial product and therefore falls into the purview of ASIC and what they are able to regulate. Retirement village contracts do not meet the definition of financial products and there are likely to be legal barriers to this, given existing regulation by states and territories.

As retirement villages are the responsibility of state and territory governments, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission cannot have oversight of these entities. However, I have raised these matters with the Assistant Treasurer, who was very encouraging, and I would encourage the member for Mayo to do the same. The Assistant Treasurer reiterated that improved consumer protections and transparency are key priorities of the Albanese government, and we are actively working to protect consumers in all sections of our economy.

The Albanese Labor government cares deeply about the aged-care sector, including retirement villages. We care deeply about the older Australians who rely on it, and about their families and loved ones. Every Australian deserves a safe and comfortable retirement, and retirement villages play an important role in the options available to Australian retirees. This government is on a mission to clean up the mess left by the previous government and to deliver the foundations of a world-class system that delivers the care that older people in this country deserve. This government will not stop, and I will not stop, until we've achieved this. I thank the member for her motion.

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