Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Clark for his question. Like him, the Albanese Labor government has always recognised the steep challenges that face the aged-care industry in this country. We've never shied away from the scale of response required. I would argue that we have acted urgently in the first 12 months to address the scale of the crisis that we have confronted. That is why I travelled to the member's home state of Tasmania earlier this year to listen to the workers, the residents and the facility managers on the ground. I went to eight different facilities across Tasmania to hear their experiences and their ideas about how we address these problems and how we address them urgently. I would argue that we have done so.

A historic $36 billion funding injection in the budget is something the scale of which has not been seen in this parliament on aged care, and I think that that's important and meritorious. Also, this budget that is only three weeks old directly addressed 44 of the royal commission recommendations. That means that, in our first 12 months in government, of the 148 recommendations, we've now addressed 69, which is almost half. I accept that there's a long way to go, and I've never shied away from the fact that we do have much more to do. But to go from nine out of 148 in 15 months to 69 out of 148 in 12 months expresses our sense of the urgency and the gravity of this problem.

To your point about providers facing difficult choices about staying open or closed, I direct you to Catholic Health's chief executive, Pat Garcia. They run more than 25,000 aged-care beds in this country. That is a huge number. They said that after this budget and the measures that were put in this budget their providers are 'reassessing the once questionable viability of facilities in light of the new numbers' that they saw in the budget. Southern Cross Care Queensland CEO, Jason Eldering, who runs 12 homes in my home state, said that he welcomes the government budget because 'all new investment in aged care is welcome'.

You have already mentioned our $2.5 billion commitment to 24/7 nurses and to increase care minutes and to our life-changing $11.3 billion commitment to the pay rise for aged-care workers. These are significant measures. These are unprecedented measures for aged care. They respond directly to the royal commission.

I would also say that I think the member appreciates the need for honesty and nuance in dealing with complex problems in an industry like aged care. To go to the facility closures, there have been closures, as there have always been. That is not because of our staffing requirements. The facts are that there are more beds opening in aged care than there are closing and more facilities closed in the last year of the previous government than have closed in the first year of our government. The facilities closing in the last year of the former government were not closing because they prophetically foresaw the changes that would come. (Time expired)

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