Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Inspector-General of Aged Care Bill 2023 and a related bill. As previous speakers have mentioned, it's not easy to place a parent into an aged-care facility. I think many MPs would know what that means. I say that, having for over more than a decade dealt with constituents who have gone through that process and the complexities that it involves. People get confused, some people are tricked, and people are disappointed.

This year, I've actually gone through the same process with my father in country Queensland, a process further complicated by being one of 10 children. My lived experience confirms there are a range of reasons that make it hard for families to make decisions. Just like hundreds of thousands of Australians, my family and I have, over the last few months, made the tough decision to put a parent into a nursing home—that horrible life journey from capacity, where they make their own decisions, to not having capacity, and other people step in, hopefully with their best interests at heart. They go from being a fully functioning member of society and transition to becoming somebody requiring care. There are black-and-white legal terms like 'capacity', but we all know there's a world of grey between those two legal concepts—a world of tears, a world of tough decisions. So I understand the conflict and the number of emotions and fears that people go through when making these tough life decisions.

These tough days for families have not been helped by the almost 10 years of neglect that can be laid at the feet of the coalition. 'Neglect' is an emotive term, but it is also empirical. Remember that that was the title of the interim report handed down by the royal commission into the aged care sector—Neglect. What a cruel word for the cruel world visited on some of our most vulnerable Australians, all those older Australians who helped to build our wonderful country, who sacrificed so much during the Second World War, seniors who worked hard, paid their taxes, contributed to communities and raised their families. Those folks have their names on our street signs but were then hidden away in some cold hard place where society saw no sign of them. They suffered, using that umbrella term, neglect.

Seniors rightly expect a federal government that will respect and support them in their frailer, more vulnerable years. That's what they deserve and what they've earned after a lifetime of contributing to society. We can't ignore this social licence. To do so would be a betrayal of civilisation.

I will point out that no Labor government is blameless, but the former coalition government consistently let our senior Australians down over the last decade. It was a rot that started when the member for Cook was Treasurer. In his first budget, he cut $1.2 billion from aged care by demanding efficiencies over four years. This was already a sector under strain. So, after 23 different reports, which I suggest were more about time wasting than actually achieving change, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government knew older people were suffering in aged care and yet didn't fix the problems. They did very little to address the issues of malnutrition and substandard care in aged-care facilities. The coalition had nearly a decade to fix their mess and yet all that happened was the situation actually became worse.

The Albanese Labor government does not want older Australians—our parents, our friends and our neighbours—to experience the horrors of a failing aged-care system. A wealthy nation like Australia can and must do more to ensure that our seniors live lives filled with safety, respect and dignity. So now as the government we are doing what we can to make sure that happens. Obviously we came to government knowing that the aged-care sector was in crisis. We came to government knowing that it had been in crisis for nearly a decade and perhaps even more than that, as we might hear from other speakers. The warning signs were there. Our vulnerable and senior Australians and their families were crying out for a government to act. Over the last decade, there were those 23 reports and inquiries, studies, committee reports and a royal commission telling us that same consistent story.

That's why one of our first pieces of legislation as a Labor government was the Aged Care Amendment (Implementing Care Reform) Bill 2022. The minister for aged care said while introducing the bill that the aged care amendment bill was the beginning of the process of returning security, dignity, equality and humanity into aged care. Last week, the Albanese government introduced key legislation to continue to increase the level of transparency and accountability across the aged-care sector.

The Inspector-General of Aged Care Bill before the chamber today will establish a new statutory office, the Inspector-General of Aged Care, supported by a new statutory body, the Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care. This bill demonstrates our continued commitment to improving the aged-care sector and building confidence back in a sector that has fallen so far in Australian eyes. This bill further adds to our government's response to the royal commission. It was a royal commission that should not have been needed, because older Australians should not have been left in such a parlous state of neglect. Once passed, the Inspector-General of Aged Care Bill will establish an independent body with coercive information-gathering powers so that they can turn up and knock on a door and compel people to answer questions rather than just giving people warning so they can scrub everything. You need to be able to turn up and inspect. It will give the Commonwealth's administration and regulation of the aged-care system expertise. The bill will give the inspector-general the necessary powers to investigate systemic issues across the aged-care system, including the complaints management process. We can't fix these problems without tackling them head-on, without fear or favour.

Very importantly, the inspector-general will also report findings and recommendations to government, parliament and the public to facilitate positive change for our older Australians. Reporting by the inspector-general will be public and must be tabled in parliament within 15 sitting days—lots of sunlight. This is necessary if we're to build trust, confidence and accountability in the aged-care sector. The inspector-general will also have the power to report on the government's implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, again a very important factor in making sure there is accountability and transparency in government processes. Governments cannot be left to say they will do something; they must be able to demonstrate that they've achieved it and that this action is accounted for.

The most important thing about this role is that the inspector-general will operate autonomously. The Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care will be completely separate from the Department of Health and Aged Care and the other government bodies responsible for administering and regulating aged care. This will protect the independence and integrity of the inspector-general and bring an impartial view to monitoring, investigating and reporting on issues across the aged-care sector. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety highlighted a clear need for independent oversight of the administration and regulation of the aged-care system.

The commission also recommended that the governance of the aged-care system be subject to ongoing scrutiny. This means the inspector-general will have oversight, at a systemic level, of the existing government agencies with aged-care responsibilities. But it will not have responsibilities for the development of policy, nor for the administration, funding or delivery of the aged-care system. This approach preserves independence and mitigates any perception of a conflict of interest in the office's functions.

The bill enables the inspector-general to use their information-gathering powers to monitor decisions, programs, operations and funding under aged-care laws, to maintain a comprehensive understanding of what is occurring, what trends are emerging, what systemic issues are prevailing and what insights there are from a holistic view. This is all designed to assist the work of those incredible aged-care workers who, we all know, are doing their best every single day for the people they care for. It will give assurance to the public and aged-care bodies on the priorities of the inspector-general.

The bill requires the inspector-general to publish, each year, a workplan outlining the reviews they intend to conduct and when they intend to commence each review. This plan may be varied at the discretion of the inspector-general.

As mentioned earlier, the bill empowers the inspector-general to report to the government—also, equally importantly, to the parliament and the public—on the progress of implementing the royal commission's recommendations. Progress reports will occur annually to ensure that aged-care reform remains a priority. We know that there are many challenges. We know there are workforce issues. There are workforce issues in the electorate of Moreton, which is almost an inner-city electorate, and it's even more complicated in the bush. Older Australians and their families will see the benefit of the reform coming from these recommendations. This bill requires the inspector-general to undertake a detailed review and report to the government, the parliament and the public at the five-year mark and the 10-year mark.

This bill also makes sure that the royal commission will not be another missed opportunity, another one of those 23 reports sitting on the shelf gathering dust. It makes sure someone has the autonomy to say whether or not things are effective and to call out governments of whatever hue. As the minister said last week when introducing this bill, 'The bill I introduce today will steer a course to an aged-care system that deliver safe and high-quality aged care and underlines our commitment to holding ourselves accountable.' As a government, we now have the opportunity and responsibility to make sure that in the lives of our parents and grandparents in their senior years, our oldest Australians, there is humanity in the provision of care, and that, wherever possible, they are able to live their lives with dignity.

The royal commission, which many of us spoke about while we were in opposition, challenged this nation to do better. The legislation before the chamber will make sure that we do, and I commend it to the House.

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