Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Human beings need care. Without care, none of us would have survived our arrival into the world. We need thoughtful, loving care when we are children. We need care when we are in trouble or unwell in any way. That is throughout our lives. We have to look after each other. The toughest and strongest don't always feel tough and strong. A person who seems invincible one day can be vulnerable and uncertain the next. As mature adults, we see our relationships not only with our parents and older family members but with older people generally changing and evolving. We don't all age the same way. There are people in their 80s and 90s who are forces of nature, bold and challenging, and there are others who seem to have lost their sense of themselves and their place in the world, who are heartbreakingly vulnerable, even fearful. All of them deserve and must receive our respect. If we wish to be respected as we mature and age, we have to set the example. On an individual level, the vast majority of us do that the best we can. Working adults are often time poor, and looking after older family members ourselves is often not an option, and particularly in a culture—unlike in some other cultures—where we are not a nuclear household, that is made even that much harder. On a societal level, it is complicated. It takes intense and serious commitment.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety established in 2018 was initiated by reports of appalling carelessness, heartlessness and actual brutality. Aged care, it was not. It was neglect at best and was in places much worse than that. Was this the future that awaited our parents, ourselves and our children one day? Once you could no longer earn a living or fend for yourself, could you be treated as worthless? The royal commission's final report tabled in March 2021 was entitled Care, Dignity and Respect. It called for a new act which would have as its objective the provision of a system of aged care based on a universal right to high-quality, safe and timely support and care to (1) assist older people to live an active, self-determined and meaningful life and (2) to ensure older people receive high-quality care in a safe and caring environment for dignified living in old age.

The Albanese government was elected in May 2022. Aged care is now on our watch and what have we done? Well, in July 2022 we set to work. We reached out to some of the most vulnerable of all older Australians, older First Nations people. We invested $106 million in the provision of face-to-face support and $115 million to build culturally safe aged-care facilities. In the same month, we made it clear that a qualified registered nurse was to be on site in every residential aged care across Australia 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That has now been achieved. We set aside $9.5 billion in funding and made provision for an additional 40,000 home-care packages. In October 2022, we initiated a $3.9 billion package of reform. We provided $25 million for research into dementia, aging and aged care. The May 2023 budget announced an overall spend of $36 billion on aged care for the financial year 2023-24.

Taking aged care seriously means taking aged-care workers seriously. The people caring for our aged should be skilled and valued professionals who are treated accordingly and able to devote themselves to their careers in this vital field. The Albanese Labor government made a commitment in 2023 to fund the 15 per cent award wage increase determined by the Fair Work Commission. This is already bearing fruit. The turnover of staff in aged care had been very high, and now that's dropping. In places it's down to half of what it used to be.

I was thrilled recently to visit the Midland North Metropolitan TAFE with the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, and to see and meet the new young generation of people working towards a career in aged-care services. They are delighted and enthusiastic about their career path ahead. This means greater stability, greater continuity and the chance for aged-care workers to really get to know the people they're caring for as human beings. We're spending billions on this, as we should.

Here's an important point though about spending billions: you have to do it carefully and deliberately in pursuit of what you believe to be right and necessary. You look at what you want to achieve and move towards it step by step, with each step being sustainable and heading in the right direction. We've set ourselves a goal, putting the rights and needs of older people at the centre of the aged-care system. The older people you love and who you will become have rights—the human rights that many of them, in their different ways, work for. Like every human being, they have needs. They need respect, friendship, support and dignity. We have a statement of rights for individuals and a statement of principles for government agencies and bodies. The statement of rights declares Labor's belief in the essential right of independence, autonomy, empowerment and freedom of choice. People receiving aged care have the right to make decisions and be supported in making those decisions and the knowledge that those decisions will be respected. They also have the right to take personal risks in pursuit of a quality of life, social participation and intimate and sexual relationships. Let's think about that for a minute. It's a declaration of belief in the right of a human being to go on growing, challenging themselves and learning. Whether or not they are retired from paid employment, they should not be expected to retire from life.

Labor is also emphasising something at the heart of all we do in every aspect of policymaking: the importance of equitable access. The right to equitable access to education, training, care of all kinds and the chance to be all that you can be is a fundamental Labor value. We acknowledge the right to be treated with dignity, respect and safe, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory treatment. We insist upon the right to have one's identity, culture, spirituality and diversity valued and supported.

A couple of weeks ago Minister for Aged Care, Anika Wells, someone who actually worked in the sector, managed to remove coalition disagreement to another set of investment in the proper care for senior Australians. I hope I don't sound too cynical when I suggest that perhaps some Liberals and Nationals hoped that voters in years to come will imagine that these ideas and changes were theirs when they were not. The minister was able to announce an additional $900 million worth of incentives and funding to support aged care in so-called thin markets like regional and rural areas and peri-urban, like mine is, areas. Under the coalition, despite the presence of the Nationals, these areas often missed out. So, when Labor says 'all Australians', we mean it. The Aged Care Bill 2024 is a big step forward for the people we love, for the people we know and respect, for ourselves—all of us, the people we will become—and for Australia's children and, of course, their children. I commend the bill to the House.

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