Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Aged Care Bill 2024 and the Aged Care Legislation Amendment Bill 2024. There are generally only two times in our lives—we hope—when we're fragile, we're vulnerable and we may require long-term physical support from others. The first is, of course, when we're young—when we're born and we must rely on our parents to raise us, to feed us and to care for us. The second is when we enter our older years. Once again, we may need to rely on others for physical support. So, as we take measures as a society to ensure the proper treatment of our youngest citizens, we must work to guarantee high-quality care for our elderly.

I'm sure all of us in this place can agree—and we don't always agree on much, but I think this is something we can agree on—that older Australians should be able to enter that phase of their lives with dignity and security, to have their needs met and to feel safe. I think everyone in this place would agree with that. Unfortunately, the aged-care sector has been plagued with a range of problems for quite some time. In 2018, when the coalition was in government, we recognised the need to have an independent review of aged care in Australia, and we took that important step of establishing the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. In response to the royal commission, we're providing more than $18 billion in funding to support the immediate needs of the sector, and we remain resolute in advocating for the dignity and security that our older Australians deserve. We are currently seeing more than half of Australia's aged-care homes operating at a loss. This is occurring at the same time as our population continues to age, with an increasing desire to remain at home. These are just some of the issues that mean reform of the sector is necessary, and I'm really proud that the coalition has engaged in good-faith negotiations with the government to work towards a bipartisan solution.

I won't pretend that this legislation before us today is perfect, because it's not. The bills before us, for instance, leave much of the heavy lifting and substantive detail to be formulated by the executive in the form of delegated legislation. Nor will I pretend that the Albanese government have covered themselves in glory by once again failing to implement a proper and transparent consultation process on key changes. In saying all that, on this side of the chamber we do know that we are at a crossroads for the aged-care sector, with some 49 aged-care homes having closed since Labor took office in May 2022. This, of course, needs to stop, and I'm certainly hoping that the introduction of these bills will reverse this trend and result in the commencement of critical new builds across the country. It is with that goal in mind that we have worked collaboratively with the government to improve this legislation.

I'd just like to pause for a minute to make a special mention of Senator Ruston, the shadow minister for health and aged care, who has led the coalition's good-faith negotiations with the government. I can tell you that Senator Ruston deeply cares and understands the challenges facing the aged-care sector. She knows just how important her portfolio is. Well done, Senator Ruston. I give credit to her for this negotiation, which has led to some very important elements being included in the bill, which I would like to now make comment on.

One of the measures I'm particularly pleased about—although, as a regional member of parliament, I'd say that we could always go further—is the inclusion of funding for aged-care providers in regional, rural and remote Australia. Unfortunately, the government originally did not think that it was necessary or wise to include a targeted plan to support these providers, despite the disparities we know exist in regional Australia. Our specific focus has meant that $300 million in additional capital funding through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program has been included, allowing providers to upgrade their facilities. I'm hoping that this will allow for more seniors to remain in the regions that they love as they age instead of being forced, predominantly, to move into urban centres away from friends and family.

This is a phenomenon that happens far too often. People living in my electorate of Durack—1.5 million square kilometres, so that's a lot of towns and a lot of seniors, a lot of people ageing—feel like they have no choice but to leave their communities to receive care. I'm seeing that particularly in areas like the Pilbara and the Kimberley. Imagine what it must be like to have lived in a place your whole life, just to be forced to leave at a time when you're probably at your most vulnerable. We do need to think of the mental health consequences as well as the physical.

Last month I travelled with my state Liberal colleague Mem Beard MLA to have lunch with Sylvia Kelly and the wonderful members of the Gingin Care Group. In the shire of Gingin, which is in the peri-urban area of Durack, there are 900 people aged over 70. This is their dream:

A permanent daytime place in where older people who have care in home but who find the days very long and can't really cook any more, can come together for as many days as they want, to get quality fresh food, play games, share coffee, have some gentle exercise with others, get a nurse to check the scrapes and cuts that happen with older skin—

it's happening to me now, Madam Deputy Speaker—

sit in a garden with others and chat and watch birds in a bird bath, have a computer person (with a computer) to help with all those computer things that are too hard—all in one place.

Such a beautiful aspiration! What they're talking about, really, is a halfway place. They're already getting care in their home, they don't want to go into an aged-care facility, and this would be like a halfway place to make sure they could stay in their own home for as long as they wanted to. But, sadly, once these Gingin residents get to the point where they need extra help, where they need to go into an aged-care facility, there is very little available locally and they are forced to leave. I heard from many people, especially women, the day we had lunch that they were really worried about the future. That's why there was the idea of this halfway home, which maybe would allow them to stay for another couple of years.

All of this, of course, makes you think about your own parents. Certainly, meeting that group of wonderful Gingin residents made me think about my own mother, who lives in Kalgoorlie. I don't think she'll mind me saying she is over the age of 80, although she doesn't look it. She still cooks up a storm and still looks after her beautiful garden, but she's starting to need help with the odd job, and I think she would say that those few jobs will eventually grow into many jobs that she needs help with. Now, she would say, 'Melissa, I don't ever need to go into an aged-care facility,' but we don't know the future. The reality is that for my mum, Lyn Dellar, to stay in Kalgoorlie, where she wants to live—she loves and is passionate about the Goldfields area—the aged-care facility options for her are very few. Who knows what the future will be for her. Hopefully, she will never get to that point. She's an incredibly capable woman, and of course I'm immensely proud of her. This is just a personal example of what life is like in the regions.

Another important provision was that the changes initiated by this legislation would be grandfathered in. This is good news. We advocated for this because we on this side of the House believed it was incredibly important that those who were already in the system wouldn't be impacted by the changes in the two bills we're discussing today. This means all older Australians currently in the system, including those on a home-care waiting list will not pay one cent more for their aged-care journey. I think that's incredibly important. This is, of course, a commonsense provision and shows respect to our senior citizens. As a general principle, government should not move the goalposts for those who have already entered the system—any system. I think we would all agree that that's a very good principle for any government. Of course, people in aged care will already have calculated exactly how much they can afford and are making decisions based on that, so I'm sure this will be a very welcome inclusion.

We also worked to ensure a fairer deal for hardworking Australians. We did this by fighting for the inclusion of a much lower taper rate, to ensure equitable contributions for Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement. We also gained an assurance from Labor that the federal government—not the consumer—would remain the majority funder of aged care.

Another priority of the coalition was the maintenance of lifetime contribution caps on care contributions across residential care and home care. I believe this inclusion will provide much-needed certainty for families who may have loved ones in care for many years. The reality is we don't know how long the journey is, and this will ensure that older Australians and their families will be required to contribute to care cost for only four years.

The government's original proposal sought no cap on home care and a $184,000 on residential aged care only. We were able to gain the concession that no older Australians will ever pay more than $130,000 for home care and for nonclinical care and residential care combined. This addition will save many older Australians and their families tens of thousands of dollars. We strongly pushed for the removal of criminal penalties from the bill following serious concerns that their inclusion would force the exit of highly capable staff from the sector out of fear of being criminally punished to a level not seen in any other industry.

The Albanese government wanted aged-care workers—at a time when we're struggling to get highly qualified aged-care workers—and even volunteers to be criminally liable under the new act—madness! We squashed Labor's outrageous attempt to force unionism into every aged-care home. Labor wanted a worker's representative to be able to come into every single aged-care home and demand an explanation on any aspect of its operations. We support aged-care providers working consultatively with their staff. That's what we expect. That's what the residents in aged-care facilities would expect. But we will not let the unions march into aged-care homes and tell them how to do their jobs. That is why we successfully fought to remove this provision.

Once again, I give a big pat on the back to Senator Ruston for all of her efforts to improve these bills. We are an ageing population and our senior citizens are precious. They deserve respect and understanding as they enter their latter years. They want to be treated with dignity and we should be proud of the care they are given at a most vulnerable time of their lives. Sadly, the care in aged care often falls short of the necessary standard. This bill goes some way to improving the aged-care system, which in its current form is not sustainable. But it's a good start—let's be positive. It's a good start, but we should be watching the aged-care sector like a hawk to ensure that the cost of care is reasonable, that care is of a high standard, and that the aged-care providers are financially viable and believe they have a bright future. Quite frankly, without aged-care providers there is no aged care.

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