Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

We all want our older Australians to have the care that they deserve and that they so desperately need. We all want equity in our aged-care system. The care that you receive should not be determined by your postcode. It should not be determined by whether you live in a remote region or in the middle of a city. Every single Australian, irrespective of where they live or their situation, should be able to seek their own pathway into retirement clearly and be able to look forward with confidence, not fear, to how they will live in their later years. Unfortunately, that's not always the case in today's aged-care system, so it is beholden on government to do better—much, much better. Our goal as a parliament must be to create a world's-best-practice model of care when it comes to our older Australians. That's the only benchmark that our older Australians deserve, and it's a model of care we must start delivering immediately, forthwith. This cannot wait.

The new Aged Care Bill 2024 will replace the existing aged-care laws, including the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018. The introduction of the bill follows the release of the exposure draft of the Aged Care Bill on 14 December 2023 and the Final report of the Aged Care Taskforce on 12 March 2024. The bill will cover all aged-care and home-care services that are funded by the Commonwealth. The primary aim of this bill is to simplify the aged-care sector. It moves it away from being far too complex to navigate to being a system that tries to remove the stress involved in transitioning into this phase of one's life.

For its part, the coalition has worked tirelessly for six months with the government, in good faith, in order to progress the bill. But, to be clear, this bill represents Labor's reform package, and this has not been a co-design process. We have fought hard to make amendments where we believed that changes were necessary, and we have achieved significant changes throughout this process—changes that will ensure that the dignity of older Australians is at the front and centre of our policymaking agenda, and changes that will ensure that no Australian is penalised because of their geographical location, cultural background or financial position.

The aged-care sector is growing exponentially when it comes to funding for aged care. In 2021-22, the government spent $24.8 billion on aged-care services for around 1.2 million people. In the next 40 years, there will be around 3.5 million Australians over 80 years of age. This will mean that the cost of providing residential and home-care services will continue to rise exponentially for the foreseeable future. We will need to see at least 10,000 new beds opened each year for the next two decades in order to keep up with that demand. This is an unprecedented challenge for the sector as a whole, which is currently not profitable as it stands today. The Aged Care Taskforce report highlighted that 69 per cent of residential aged-care providers made an operating loss in the year 2021-22. The report stated:

Unless the aged care sector's financial viability improves, it will be difficult to attract investment, either as debt or equity. Improved financial viability is necessary to deliver improvements in service, quality and to address service gaps.

The bill proposes significant changes in how aged care is funded. Government funding currently constitutes around 75 per cent of the total cost of residential aged care and around 95 per cent of home-care funding. The Aged Care Taskforce noted in their report that this was 'not an optimal or fair mix'. Their recommendation was that the participant co-contribute an increased amount in order to make this sustainable. This is a recommendation that government has adopted.

Of significant concern to us, as the coalition, was the retrospective nature of Labor's bill and Labor's proposal. If it had been implemented, Labor would have placed significant financial penalties on those who are already in aged care. All aged-care residents and their loved ones would have planned for their retirement in good faith, based on the arrangements that they had prior to making that arrangement. They shouldn't be penalised for this. That's why the coalition negotiated so hard for the government to adopt a grandfathering arrangement for those already in aged care.

The coalition has advocated on behalf of older Australians who are currently in the aged-care system, to guarantee that they will not pay one cent more for their aged care during their lifetime, and we've been successful in bringing about changes to this bill. Anyone in residential care when reforms begin on 1 July 2025 will be exempt from the fee restructure. This will also be the case for anyone who was on the waiting list for home care on Thursday 12 September—the day of the package being announced.

When it comes to older Australians in the bush in regional and rural Australia—this is particularly pertinent to my own electorate—older people living in rural, regional and remote Australia face significant challenges and barriers when accessing aged care. Disproportionately, older people living in rural Australia experience delays in accessing aged care or simply do not receive the aged care that they need or deserve. This leads to increased frailty, to functional decline, to increased hospitalisation and to premature entry into residential aged care. It's heartbreaking to see families pulled apart from their loved ones when they must relocate to communities hours away, making it difficult for connections.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples represent a higher proportion of people living in remote Australia. However, the number of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples accessing aged care in remote areas is low. This indicates that there's a lack of culturally safe and appropriate aged care on country, where they live and where their communities are. There are significant workforce shortages in rural Australia also, and attracting and retaining an appropriately skilled and multidisciplined aged-care workforce is exponentially difficult.

Higher operating costs, workforce shortages, travelling distances and smaller population sizes limit economies of scale in remote areas, creating unique challenges for the provision of aged care in the bush. This is a snapshot of life in the bush, and this bill must address the current inequities between the capacity to provide aged care in the city and in the bush. That's why the coalition fought to ensure Labor understood the realities of living life on the land, in the bush and in the regions.

Our advocacy for regional and remote communities ensured that the bill now contains an additional $300 million for infrastructure funding for those regions. This funding stream will be available through the ongoing Aged Care Capital Assistance Program that funds regional, rural and remote aged-care providers. This funding is critical for upgrading facilities that often struggle to meet the necessary standards due to fiscal and financial constraints. Older Australians will now have better access to quality and safe aged-care services, regardless of where they live, and that's only right.

The bill's specific provisions for regional areas will also include an investment of $600 million in Support at Home, as part of a $5.6 billion aged-care reform package. This funding will be available for eligible Support at Home providers from 1 July 2025, and the grants will benefit people with diverse backgrounds and life events, while supporting service stability in rural and remote Australia.

Introducing criminal penalties into the bill was a promise Labor made. This included jail time on what they termed as 'dodgy aged-care providers' who were negligent or who mistreated residents. This was not a recommendation put forward by the royal commission, and it's simply another example of this government's heavy-handedness and naivety when it comes to the regulation of the industry.

Labor's proposal has been described as terrifying by those in the industry. That is the last thing we want when we are trying to attract good people to the industry. The coalition's position on criminal penalties has always been clear. We have responded to recommendations of the royal commission, we have listened to the aged-care sector, and what they told us time and time again was that it will force highly capable staff from the sector in fear of being criminally punished. It will do nothing to improve safety. We would see an exodus from the industry at a level not seen before and not seen by any other industry if these were to continue.

Of course the coalition supports the need for older Australians to be safe and be cared for in our aged-care system. However, in the middle of a severe workforce crisis Labor's plan was heavy-handed, it was an approach that was not needed and it imposed an unacceptable risk in our opinion. The threat of jail time if the last thing that aged-care workers and volunteers need as they work hard to care for older Australians in their care. We were non-negotiable on this issue and were pleased that Labor listened and were able to remove this from the provision of the bill.

Moving through the aged-care process should not be traumatic; it should be as seamless as possible. We want an aged-care system that is driven by the desires and expectations of our older Australians, models that reflect the way they want to live in aged care. For that to occur, aged care must be sustainable. The coalition will work continually with older Australians and the aged-care providers to ensure this model is fit for purpose and robust enough to ensure the support of future generations as they age.

As I close, I want to also mention something that is not in the report. As I travel around my electorate and visit my aged-care providers, it takes me about two minutes to work out as soon as I walk inside the door what the culture of the place is like. You can see it in the eyes and in the faces of those in the aged-care home. Nine times out of 10 it is a positive place and our older Australians love being there. That is not mentioned. That culture, that leadership, that care, that empathy, that understanding, that respect that we want for every single aged-care home throughout all the states and territories must be at the centre of every piece of legislation. We must refer to that and reinforce that and encourage that because that is what makes an aged-care facility a home. After all, that is what older Australians expect and deserve. They need a home and they need someone to respect them.

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