Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 as I strongly believe the measures contained in the bill further safeguard older Australians with increased protection and improvement to the overall quality of care delivered to them when they are resident in Australian government subsidised aged care facilities. When the minister announced the $90.2 million package of reforms in July last year he foreshadowed at the time that the reforms would include the creation of a new aged care commissioner, new complaints investigation procedures, a regime of compulsory reporting of certain types of assault, and legislative protections for whistleblowers.

The bill before the House today builds on the reforms of last year and delivers the commitments made by the minister when he announced those reforms. The reforms last year introduced requirements for police background checks for aged care workers and certain volunteers in Australian government subsidised aged-care services. Also introduced were more frequent unannounced inspections of aged-care homes by the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. These reforms were welcomed by the community. In particular, they were welcomed by families and friends of those older Australians who were in aged-care facilities. In fact, I believe the measures being introduced today and those last year have been in response to community expectations of how old Australians are cared for and will be cared for in the future.

I have a close association with many of the aged-care providers in my electorate. In fact, I visit many of the facilities on a regular basis so I can meet and chat with the patients. These visits enable me to ascertain for myself whether those older Australians are happy and receiving the care they need. It is amazing what these very special constituents will share with you over a cup of tea. Some do raise issues of concern but these issues are often very simple to rectify. With the close working relationship I have with my providers I have no problem in raising any issues that residents have and I have always found staff and the providers more than happy to accommodate residents’ concerns wherever possible.

In McPherson I have 17 aged-care facilities offering different levels of care: dementia-specific care, high and low care, special and independent care and respite for families. Some of the facilities are run by well-respected church organisations—by Blue Care and Lutheran Aged Care—and others by private providers such as the McKenzie family, who recently opened Sandbrook, and Don Brearly, who owns and operates Villa Serena at Robina.

Many of the newer facilities have been opened only in the last couple of years. The Hon. Tony Abbott officially opened Hill View at Merrimac last year. The team at Hill View do a wonderful job caring for older Australians in this beautiful facility, and they have forged a very strong relationship with their neighbour Merrimac State School. The partnership between the home and the local school has brought together younger members of the community with older Australians. I understand the partnership continues to grow stronger and stronger.

The RSL aged-care facility at Currumbin is a wonderful example of caring for many of our returned service men and women. A special Anzac Day ceremony is held at the facility which is well attended by the local community. Each of the facilities has special attributes and I know that the majority of aged-care providers give excellent care. In fact, many of the workers I speak to regard their duty of care to our vulnerable, frail and older Australians as paramount. Strong bonds of friendship are forged, and I know many staff who have grieved like a family member when one of their patients has passed away.

Although we have excellent facilities delivering optimum care, it is our responsibility as a government to continue to strengthen the legislation, particularly in light of a number of unfortunate incidents, including alleged sexual and physical abuse, which came to light last year. These types of incidents should not and will not be tolerated by this government. The community expects a high standard of care for our older Australians and, through the bill before the House today, that high standard of care will continue. The system will be improved and made more effective by the measures before the House to ensure that physical and sexual abuse is reported through a compulsory reporting scheme which will protect the people who make the disclosures about abuse.

The bill establishes a requirement for approved providers to report allegations or suspicions of unlawful sexual contact or unreasonable use of force on a resident in a residential aged-care service. The report must be made to both the police and to the Department of Health and Ageing. It must also be made as soon as possible and not later than 24 hours after the allegation or suspicion comes to the attention of the approved provider.

Under the changes approved, providers will also be required to ensure that there are internal processes in place for the reporting, by staff, of all incidents involving alleged sexual or serious physical assault. Staff members will be able to report to the approved provider or the approved provider’s key personnel or other authorised people. The bill also enables staff members to report directly to the police or the department. This may occur where, for example, a staff member does not feel comfortable reporting alleged incidents to the home. Failure to have the necessary systems and protocols in place, and failure to report incidents, will indicate regulatory noncompliance, leading to the possible imposition of sanctions.

The bill underpins these new compulsory reporting arrangements with protection for people who report the abuse. It has been recognised that staff are more likely to report incidents of assault where they do not fear reprisal from their employer or indeed other staff members. The legislation ensures that staff members who make disclosures about assaults have their identity protected and ensures they are not victimised in the workplace. The legislation also protects disclosers from civil and criminal liability in relation to the disclosure. A court also has the authority to order that an employee be reinstated or paid compensation if their employment is terminated because of the fact that they made a protected disclosure. These aspects of the bill are important because they protect staff from disclosure. More importantly, they mean that staff can feel comfortable about reporting—that there are protective measures in place which will encourage them not to fear reprisal when reporting incidents.

A further measure in the bill is the establishment of a new and independent Aged Care Commissioner relacing the existing Commissioner for Complaints. The previous Commissioner for Complaints was limited within the scope of the previous legislation to undertake investigations and to take action. This bill enhances the role of the commissioner and also enhances the manner in which complaints are handled. A new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance has been established within the Department of Health and Ageing and it is responsible for investigating any information about possible noncompliance by approved providers. The office will have the power to investigate all complaints and information. It will have the power to determine whether a breach of the approved provider’s responsibilities has occurred. When a breach is identified the office will have the power to require the approved provider to take appropriate action to remedy the breach. More importantly, the office will have the capacity to issue notices of required action to providers who have breached their responsibilities and take compliance action where the provider fails to remedy the issue. The new Aged Care Commissioner will provide an independent mechanism to hear complaints about action taken by the new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance in the investigation of complaints and also about the conduct of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency and its assessors.

The Aged Care Commissioner will also have the capacity to undertake ‘own motion’ reviews. It is proposed that the new arrangements will take effect from 1 April 2007. Prior to that time line, the department will be issuing approved providers with information and guidelines on the new requirements. It is important that the government continues to work with all stakeholders to ensure the best possible measures are put in place to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. The measures introduced in the legislation are in response to concerns and issues raised directly with the minister, and the government has responded—and responded, I believe, in a positive way that will ensure families, residents, nurses, care workers and providers all have a very clear understanding that abuse of the elderly will not be tolerated. It is unacceptable that any form of sexual or serious physical abuse is perpetrated on the elderly. There is protection for the elderly and, because of the new compulsory reporting arrangements, there is protection for the staff. I commend the legislation to the House.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 is a sad bill to come before the House because it deals with very difficult areas. Questions of sexual or physical assault in aged-care premises send a shudder throughout the community because people in those areas of residential care are by their very nature relatively more vulnerable than people outside them. The reason for that, of course, is that 96 per cent of the Australian population still maintain themselves outside this kind of residential care. That figure has probably gone down in the last few years, since 1995 or so, but we are still looking at that order of magnitude. Most people can maintain themselves at home. Most people still have a close family relationship. They live either with a sibling at home or with their spouse until the spouse dies, or they have other connected family close to them. They have what we would see as a normal environment in which to operate and one in which the same occasions for the commission of sins are not there. It is not the same cloistered environment that you would find in this kind of residential place or in any of those other places where these kinds of things have been a problem over time—the boarding school environment and other closed environments, whether in the armed forces or closed academies, where you get congregations of people outside the normal family environment.

We know that physical and sexual assault can happen within the family context in the family home, but the measures here in this bill deal with a particular and different context. We have a different structure now to the one we had in the seventies, eighties or nineties and since the member for Mackellar was the minister. The structure then has been described as ‘ageing in place’ and it was based on the model where you would have one place that a person went into—they might go into a self-care unit. We now have a series of places where there are self-care units and, by and large, people just live the way they did in their original homes. It is a smaller area to take care of and there is a commonality in terms of dealing with all of the needs of the people. The common grounds are looked after, there is an on-site medical service and a nursing service if people get into trouble and there is also a range of other services available.

That facility is often combined with a hostel so that if people get to the point where they are no longer capable of looking after themselves in their own self-care places they can move into a hostel. It is a much smaller room—usually just one room with en suite—and there are common meal facilities. It is a much closer arrangement where more of the difficulties outlined in this bill in terms of sexual and physical assault can occur and, indeed, have occurred.

Where such assaults are less likely—but there is still the potential for them to occur—is at the very end of the process when people have been put into full nursing home care. Prior to the changes we made when we were last in government it used to be that people were inappropriately placed in full nursing home care when their condition was such that they should have been in a hostel or in their own self-care unit. So it is a question of time and place and of being put into an environment that people are not used to and one with the potential for sexual or physical assault to happen and for those assaults to be relatively concealed.

There are particular notations in the bill with regard to people who have dementia because there need to be exceptions to the reporting requirements where they are concerned. There has been a debate about whether there should be compulsory or mandatory reporting. This bill says that there should be compulsory rather than mandatory reporting. One of the reasons for it not being mandatory is people suffering from dementia. We know that those who do suffer from dementia can have a string of different responses over time and, in some people, there is a progression where they become very physically aggressive as they lose their sense of themselves and their normal control mechanisms in interactions with their family. They can become extremely aggressive and, although they are affected mentally, they do not have a loss of physical power.

I know from people in Bankstown who are in those circumstances, who have relatives who need that kind of care, just how difficult it is when a person develops that kind of response. A person who was a normal, loving husband throughout his life who develops into something else can be extremely confronting. That can happen in situ, at home. I am aware of cases where that has happened and where there has been relatively no protection for the spouse from the husband affected by dementia who becomes physically aggressive—except for taking out an AVO or taking other measures to address it. It also happens in residential care situations, but there it should be dealt with more easily and in a more orderly way because they have specific dementia care units. But people are so physically strong in these circumstances, the adrenalin runs so high, that it can be very difficult to deal with them.

I have considerable concern about the manner in which this bill has come before us, with very little time for us—certainly for me—and particularly the shadow minister to consider these matters. The government can say: ‘Well, we’ve made a quick response. We’ve come through with a bill that is substantial, small and narrow in focus, but that substantially meets the complaints that have been made. We’re putting this into place and we’re going to get it through the parliament as quickly as possible.’ What is the driver behind this? Media reports of physical and sexual abuse. Those media reports have been recent. The action taken here has already been underlined in arguments on the other side as a speedy reaction. The government have come forward; they have reacted.

Normally, the proper thing to do here would be, first, to have had full consultation with the industry to see how widespread and deep these problems are, and then to take speedy action—action that is based on extensive consultation, to ensure that what you are putting into place will really work and work effectively. Second, you would expect that the opposition in this place and in the other place would deal with this in an appropriate manner—well, for that to happen, it is often good to give people a brief on the legislation and allow them to look at it! But here we have a situation where the bill was referred for inquiry by the government on Wednesday, 7 February, and tabled in the House on Thursday, 8 February, and we are debating it today, Wednesday, 14 February. The Senate inquiry is not due to report for a full month, not until 14 March, and then the expectation is that the measures will be implemented on 1 April of this year.

What that means, as the shadow minister has argued, is that, firstly, the bill has been rushed in. The shadow minister was not able to see the bill before the government recommended it to the Senate legislation inquiry. Secondly, the principles that support the bill are still in draft form and have not yet been sighted. Thirdly, the bill only came after media reports of sexual abuse in residential aged-care facilities. This last point is telling, given the alacrity with which the government has put the bill forward, because what has happened is exactly the opposite. The provisions of this bill are being implemented two years after the Senate committee inquiry into aged care, with its report entitled Quality and equity in aged care, found deficiencies in the operation of the current complaints resolution scheme and made recommendations to improve the system that go to these very matters. The impetus behind this bill was getting the media coverage: if the coverage is embarrassing enough then the government will move—without adequate consultation.

The aged-care providers who are tagged in this bill with requirements for compulsory reporting of suspected physical or sexual assault, by and large, as far as we understand, are willing to take part in the Senate inquiry and are willing to take the measures in the bill forward and put them into place, but they think that they really do need to be part of this process. And a whole series of technical amendments may arise that we will have to look at later, after this has been through the Senate process.

Fundamental parts of this bill deal with the new compulsory reporting arrangements, which require aged-care providers to report suspected or alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assault of residents, and, further, require them to have internal processes within the organisation for staff to report all incidents of suspected or alleged sexual abuse or serious physical assault. The identity of staff who report incidents will be protected; there is protected disclosure. There are a number of measures in the bill that go to this situation.

As I said at the outset, this is a difficult area. It is difficult sometimes to know, unless it is blatantly in front of you, whether an assault is a direct assault on a person, particularly when it is of a sexual nature. It is particularly difficult when people who have dementia or who suffer from a range of other problems are the ones doing the assaulting. These assaults do not always occur in the way that people think and they need to be looked at closely.

There is a sensible proposal in this bill to appoint an Aged Care Commissioner to look at complaints and deal with them. This means not only that there is a greater capacity to investigate the complaints but also that the investigation will be done by someone outside the process.

We know that all of the aged-care facilities in my electorate have improved over time, but a number of them which were mentioned in dispatches some years ago have had to significantly improve the way in which they do things. This relates to what they are tasked with, the normal tasks that they have. The majority of those providers which are part of the network have always carried out those tasks. The Uniting Church has provided a significant number of places in Blaxland. Also our Bankstown aged-care organisation provided four basic hostels and now has a magnificent complex up at Georges Hall.

People know how difficult it is to adequately provide for not only people’s needs but also the particular areas addressed in this legislation. This is very much the case in the dementia care units. In these units you are looking at potential physical and sexual assaults almost from unguided missiles—from people who have lost the restraints and constraints that they used to have prior to being affected by dementia. So it is important that these measures are put into place. The dementia aspect is extremely significant.

I want to make the debate a little broader. There are significant language problems that demand a great deal not only of service providers but also of the staff in nursing homes in an electorate like Blaxland. This is the case in not only the existing electorate but also the new, redistributed Blaxland. Those language problems are significant and deep. This concerns all of those people who came here postwar. A lot of people who came from Europe who were from peasant backgrounds left school at primary school age, like most Aussies did before World War II. They were adequate in their own local dialect but they had difficulty with the broader language, be it Italian or Greek—the demotic language of the country. To come here at the age they did meant it was difficult to then go and learn English.

As those groups have aged, one of the fundamental problems they have had to deal with is the fact that they cease to have the capacity that they had when they were in the workforce—as good, bad or medium as it was—to deal with other people more readily. They retreat to their original language. If you do not have adequate services to help them then they can be imprisoned in that original language and go back to their original mode of going about things. It is only the family that can help to sort it out, as the young kids used to do when they were at school. The schoolkids used to sort out the problems their parents had.

There are specific cases just outside my electorate. St Basil’s Nursing Home is a wonderful facility run by the Greek community. It was set up specifically to address the problems in the Greek community. It is open to the rest of the community but is able to address that particularly significant problem of language. It is not just about food or cultural requirements; it is about the problem of people not being able to communicate their needs. In this area they also need to communicate problems of physical or sexual assault on them.

How do you deal with this? More than one person in five in my redistributed electorate of Blaxland is Vietnamese. Among that vast community of people who are Vietnamese are those who went through a brutal civil war that the communists finally won. There are people who ended up in camps or in prison and who were part of the refugee efflux in the seventies and eighties. They have been here for more than 30 years and have carried enough crosses in their lives. They have established themselves, worked hard and built strong communities based on their fundamental family and community values. They are the backbone, with their children and grandchildren, of our professional class—the doctors, dentists and lawyers—because they work so hard. There is not a single nursing home in my electorate with a dedicated language facility for people of Vietnamese background.

I went just a week or so ago, in the break, to a Vietnamese and Indochinese elderly group to speak to them and see what their concerns were. I had heard before what they were, but this is the first time that this area has come into my electorate since I have been the member. In 1984 we had part of it. It includes Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Lansvale and Lansdowne. In that area there is a very high concentration of Vietnamese. There are 1,000 people within this aged-care group. Most of them live in their own homes and come to this group for support once a week. There is a part-time employee five days a week, for four hours a day, doing excellent work, together with four volunteers who roll in every day in order to help the people who have problems, to refer them to federal or state members or to council to sort out their problems with departments.

Those kinds of facilities are available to people, but they do not have a dedicated aged-care facility where they can seek to help those people who are language dependent. The group have just initiated a process to look at setting up a hostel and to work within the community to get the money together to do that. I have committed myself in the next term to doing everything I can to support them in setting up a hostel program or an aged-care facility with federal, state and community support, not only from the Vietnamese community but from the community generally.

These are the particular results of living in a society based on migration. We did not do enough previously, and there were a series of decades in which not enough was done to help people settle. This is still part of the settlement process, 30 and 40 years on. It is inevitable that when people go into residential care there is a shutdown in their capacity to deal with people who are not from the same linguistic background. To assist them with all of their needs, but in particular the ones that are dealt with in this legislation, we need trained staff who are capable of translating the problems that these people come up with, translating the allegations. So the reporting mechanisms need to take that into account.

In so many of our facilities, not only in the dementia units but in hostel care and other areas, we have people from a whole variety of language backgrounds. You have the same problem but it is multiplied because there are multiple language problems. That is something else that is not looked at here but that I think needs to be looked at very closely in the Senate inquiry. The providers and the staff, along with the government, need to take account of this and put more resources where they are needed not only for the one in five people in my new electorate who are Vietnamese, where there is nothing at all that is specific—it is very difficult for them to get access—but for the plurality of people. (Time expired)

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Blaxland is pretty close to the mark, but there is one variation I will make on his contribution to the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. It has nothing to do with the extension of the settlement process, when we start to talk about the need for linguistic skills in aged-care services. For heaven’s sake, surely 30, 40 or 50 years after people have arrived in Australia, we should let them know they have settled.

I see the new Minister for Immigration and Citizenship here in the chamber. I was the first ever minister for citizenship at the Commonwealth level and one of the things I learned was that there are too many government agencies—federal, state and local—who have a belief that if the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs imported people to this country then forever they must be their problem. We really have to understand that our cultural diversity, our linguistic diversity and our religious diversity are very much at the heart of what makes Australia what it is today. Departments like the Department of Health and Ageing have got to have programs that give assistance to providers to offer linguistic skills, cultural skills, religious skills—even food skills. Perhaps providers can be given an opportunity to set up wings in their facilities that can be dedicated to particular groups within the community.

There are some great private providers in my electorate. Over time they may be able to provide 20 beds out of 100 for aged people from the Dutch, Greek or Italian communities and, over time, perhaps those from the Vietnamese community, the next group in the community to see its population in Australia age. The member for Blaxland and I will both have to deal with people from the Sudanese, Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean communities. He has a 100 per cent right to say that this is something in public policy that has to have a sensible aspect to it. So I will join with about 90 per cent of what he has said. But I ring the bells: this will not ruin his re-election in Blaxland—he has got the numbers locked up. Here you have the Liberal member for Moreton—the most culturally diverse seat in Queensland—agreeing with the Labor member for Blaxland on the point that we have to look at the whole of our society when we make our plans about this. I think he is also right in the point he makes about the bill before us on the establishment of the aged-care commissioner, who will be a point of reckoning, a responsibility mechanism, who will report to the minister about the sorts of violations that have occurred, about the attacks on elderly people, on vulnerable people—whether they are sufferers of dementia or whether they are simply physically infirm. From time to time there may be exploitation of older people. Any time it happens is too much. I think I heard the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro, say that a few months ago in responding to some horrific reports.

We have to be very clear that aged-care sector professionals today are offering day-to-day assistance to those who helped to build this country, the nation builders, particularly the post World War II generation who are now starting to age. Aged-care workers are champions. They do things that I personally would find very difficult, almost impossible, to do—certainly outside of my immediate family. They offer care and they put in extra effort in so many different ways, working unpaid overtime. I have met too many aged-care workers in that circumstance. I do not know whether many owners of aged-care facilities understand exactly what it is that the workers in those places do and the difference that they make through their very personal care and attention for the patients in their care. I am talking about not only those in institutions but also those who are ageing in place, ageing at home. Over the last 10 or 11 years, this government has embarked on making available to people more packages so they can age in place. That makes a difference. Perhaps, to reflect further on the contribution of the member for Blaxland, it also creates another set of problems because of their isolation. Those suffering from dementia who are ageing at home may revert to the language of their childhood. We find people who are perhaps even further socially isolated and trapped by those who have the linguistic skills to care for them, who become gatekeepers and controllers of their everyday lives. In fact we hope that their inheritance and dignity are in the control of good people. That is what the aged-care commissioner will of course deal with.

I think back to when we first came to office in 1996. In Queensland there was an absolutely chronic shortage of aged-care beds. There was a huge problem in Queensland. From memory, Victoria was way oversubscribed. I know the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Mr Andrews, is from Victoria, and he was once the Minister for Ageing. At the end of it, Victoria’s entitlement was way oversubscribed from our point of view as Queenslanders. We fought hard to get further beds allocated to Queensland. There was an accelerated program for Queensland. The Prime Minister listened to us. We worked with him to make that difference in our own area. I have looked back—which I can afford to do in preparation for this discussion—and in my area of Moreton alone there has been a doubling of the number of places and a quadrupling off the base of the amount of money that is expended in aged care. So not only has the number of institutional places doubled but also we have added the community aged-care packages. There were zero in 1995-96 and 187 in 2005-06. That in itself explains that we not only put pressure on the Prime Minister and the Treasurer back in 1996-97 to get some way forward but also have actually been able to deliver on that.

I have new aged-care facilities in my area that are fantastic—for instance, the Regis home at Salisbury. The new facility at Eight Mile Plains which the Bethany Christian Care have in place is without doubt, like the Regis home, an exemplary example of aged-care practices, with 32 high-care beds and 64 low-care beds. This is a facility that will continue to grow. I know that Minister Santoro actually opened that facility in Underwood Road last year, and I was very pleased to be there with him. On raw statistics alone, the electorate of Moreton now has 408 high-care beds and 550 low-care beds. I have figures from the Department of Health and Ageing that back up that claim, but I very much want to place on the record my enormous sense of gratitude to those aged-care workers who work in so many different places to make a difference for people who deserve to have a difference made for them.

I know that there are a number of aged-care facilities on the south side of Brisbane that have had a history of long service. Because of this government’s reaction to the understandable public pressure being applied to update and upgrade facilities, they may face some changes to their circumstances as new facilities may have to replace the old. That seems to be a concern in the sector now, and of course government support to assist with a lot of the practical infrastructure is there—but not in a complete sense, I know. Nevertheless, we have partnerships with private providers like Churches of Christ, TriCare, the Uniting Church, organisations to do with the Catholic Church and others, and the Russian Benevolent Association. The way in which Serge Voloschenko and his team have made a difference at Pine Lodge for 30 or 40 years, offering Russian-speaking assistance to people, is now being met by the enthusiasm of others in the community who want to do more for their particular parts of my enormously culturally diverse local area, and of course I speak of the work being done by the Jeta Gardens corporation.

Jeta Gardens have established themselves at Bethania, in the member for Forde’s electorate, 20 minutes by rail from Sunnybank in my electorate. Choe Lam Tan and his consortium members have set out to establish a marvellous aged-care facility which will have a Buddhist feel about it. I do not know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I may want to age as a Buddhist at a later point in time. It might be a very nice and peaceful way to go out. I am not sure what my parish priest will make of it, but it might be a very pleasant way to go out. Jeta Gardens are not saying it is only for Chinese and it is only for Buddhists; it is certainly for anybody who wants to be a part of that particular style of aged-care service, and they are opening their doors to a broad range of people.

Of course they are following on from the work that has been done by the 310-year-old Catholic order of the Sisters of St Paul de Chartres, marvellous people who, at Boronia Heights in the member for Rankin’s electorate, provide beds for all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. This is a Chinese order that has been providing this service for decades, but the order itself is some 310 years old. I remember speaking in this place on the occasion of their 300th anniversary. The sisters there have provided support for all sorts of people. My own grandmother spent some days in respite there about 18 years ago.

I make the point about this diversity because I think the member for Blaxland put me on that particular tangent. But at the end of it there is an opportunity for groups in our communities to participate in the dignity-giving which aged-care services should and are providing in this country, and what a difference a decade has made as far as aged-care services are concerned in this nation. Of course with this bill we have an ambition to do more. I thank Minister Santoro for the very deft way in which he has responded to not only the demands that have come out of the media inquiry but, of course, a lot of other interaction about the needs for compulsory reporting, not to put unnecessary pressure on aged-care professionals but to back the good ones by helping to expose if there are any bad ones in their midst, thus giving a structure and some certainty to people who are in the broader community that there can be a great deal of public confidence about the way the aged-care sector actually operates.

The safety of the residents is of paramount importance to us as a government, as it is to aged-care sector workers, those people who make a difference. Increasing the quality of care is something that we must do, because as this government has continued to invest its money in packages so that people can stay at home—and these staying-at-home packages have been enormously popular—it tends to be that those who actually arrive at the doorstep of an aged-care facility may well be those who need a higher level of care than may have been the case a decade or more ago. Increasing the quality of care and maintaining a decrease in the risk factors associated with the delivery of that care to residents are, I believe, absolutely vital.

The local RSL has undertaken a project. I have raised it in this place before, but I raise it again because it is relevant to part of the way forward. As we start to demand a higher level of care, increase the quality of care and back the professional providers at the coalface—and I am not so much talking about those who have the nice big cars and the wood-panelled offices; I am talking about the nurses and those working at the aged-care bed level—it is important that we in fact encourage another stream of people into this sector, and what the RSL at Sunnybank has done is to engage a couple of local high schools in my electorate. It is a fantastic project. Runcorn High School students and St Thomas More College students have been given a chance to work at the two RSL homes in my electorate. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, when you had the role of Minister for Veterans’ Affairs you came along to Cazna Gardens at Sunnybank Hills—‘Cazna’ being ‘Anzac’ backwards in case no-one can read that properly. Cazna Gardens and the Carrington home at Parkinson have been places where these students have gone on a weekly basis as part of their school work to actually interface with older Australians in these aged-care facilities.

From the residents’ point of view it is an opportunity for them to talk with and engage with a new generation. There are all of the fun things like learning about the internet and computers and so forth. But, for the young people, they have a chance to actually engage on the dignity, and the importance of dignity, associated with ageing. When you actually go along and talk with these kids, you see the fact that they have coped with even the worst set of circumstances. One 16-year-old girl had one of her charges die during her time at one of the homes. The way in which she learned to cope with that and the way in which she was supported by the teachers of her school and the RSL in general I think does set a very good pattern of conduct. From my point of view, I want to see those kids’ efforts actually rewarded with some kind of certified outcome from that training. It is the elementary stage of aged-care professional training and it should be recognised as such.

I think it is very important that we encourage people from all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of language backgrounds to be involved in this process, particularly in an area like mine. I know that the Charlton Brown College in Brisbane has in fact been dealing with those who have come in through the migration program. They have come to Australia perhaps as refugees. They have come with skills which have not been recognised in Australia because of the cumbersome way in which our occupation group recognition occurs and sometimes because of the professional capstones applied by organisations such as unions and state governments. I know of one chap who came from Eritrea who was a trained registered nurse in Eritrea. That would not be recognised here because of what I have just said and because of the conditions I have just outlined. This chap in fact has undergone further training through Charlton Brown College and he is now out there working in the aged-care facilities. What is really great about it is that, no matter what the complexion or the shape of face of the person offering the care, these people are involved with other people who might be of completely different ethnic or linguistic backgrounds. They are part of the changing face of aged care in Australia and, indeed, so it should be.

When this government came to office there was an aged-care expenditure of $3.1 billion. Annual government outlays now have increased to $9.9 billion by 2010-11. That is a threefold increase. When we came to government there were issues left undone by the previous administration in my own local area alone which saw people facing the hostile prospect of having to pay more for aged care because of the failure to invest in aged care by that previous government. They were too busy clocking up enormous amounts of government debt and too busy dedicating too much government expenditure to the repaying of that debt, with a $10½ billion interest rate bill in 1996-97. They were too busy putting Australia into debt to actually concentrate on investing in Australia’s long-term future.

When you think about the numbers, you realise that this country is ageing quickly. Within 50 years the number of people aged 65 will almost triple, from 2½ million today to around 7.1 million by the year 2051—that is when I will turn 91, so I will be stuck in that particular category—and it will go from about one in eight in the population to about one in four. You then realise that we have to gear this sector up for the long term. We have to make families understand that it is not a matter where, when someone reaches a certain age, they are flicked off to aged care. Families have to take primary responsibility, as they should, for the older members of their family. They should indeed be the first port of call. We have helped to resource that with increases in respite for carers, increased carers allowance and increased investment through community aged-care packages. But, when the day does come that someone loses the physical or mental capacity to look after themselves, and when a doctor decides that they actually now need the professional caregivers, we have to make sure that those professional caregivers are well trained and well resourced.

To me it is always a no-brainer. There is a no-brainer in this allocation of government resources question. The first place that the resources should go is always to the patient-caregiver equation. It should not be filtered through massive bureaucracies, choked off and used for paying off a whole pile of people in the process before that care is given, like that fabled episode of Yes, Minister in which the most efficient hospital was the one with no patients. We do not want a system that operates like that. We want something that recognises and resources first and foremost that professional caregiver equation with their patient.

That is why this legislation is in fact so important. While those opposite have been promising an aged-care policy for over two years, but have failed to produce it, this government has recognised it cannot just rest on the great achievements to date and be satisfied that the last 10 or 11 years is good progress; it also has to make sure that the progress to come will set Australia up for the long term. That is what this government is about—responsible economic management delivering the dividends to everyday Australians where and when they need them. Therefore, I absolutely recommend this legislation to the House.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. In doing so I feel compelled to digress for a moment, if I may, in following the member for Moreton. There is absolutely no doubt that we have in the aged-care sector some of the most dedicating, hardworking and committed people at that coalface he talked about, giving wonderful service to our aged members of the community who need to be in aged-care facilities for one reason or another. The little caveat I would put over that when he talks about the extracurricular activity that they undertake—the overtime without pay and the extra things they do—is that, whilst not wishing to rain on his parade too much, one of the biggest questions in aged care now and for some years has been how we actually attract those people into the sector, how we maintain them in the sector and how we actually pay them appropriately within the sector. Maintaining and paying are two of the big questions. I am virtually agreeing with the member for Moreton but putting a bit of a warning around his words. Whilst some of those hardworking staff do in fact go that extra mile, they really should not be required to. There should be sufficient numbers of them in there and they should be getting paid sufficiently so that, when they get in there, we actually hang onto them. That is a very big thing that government, no matter what their colour, needs to attend to.

Another thing that both the member for Moreton and the member for Blaxland mentioned—again a bit of a digression—was the comment about elderly people who, in their later years and with a little bit of dementia, can sometimes resort to a native language other than English. I want to mention briefly a program that I came across in my electorate late last year. Communities@Work, a community service organisation in the southern end of my electorate, decided to try a program giving access and guidance on computer skills to some of those very people. They got a number of laptops and they went along and engaged with some elderly folk, some of whom had a little bit of dementia, in aged services. Not only did those people graduate—I had the pleasure of presenting graduation certificates to these folk—but those who had retained or regained their mother language suddenly had access, through the internet, to the newspapers of their country of origin. Many had not seen newspapers from their home country in their local language for 30, 40 or 50 years. A side benefit that the people who were running the program were delighted to see was that all of a sudden this dear elderly soul with dementia or with a bit of nostalgia suddenly found that he or she could read, via the internet, the newspapers in their mother tongue from their home country. They were delighted. It was a very good program and I hope we will see more of those programs. But, as I said, I digress.

The Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 will introduce new compulsory reporting arrangements, with requirements for aged-care providers to report suspected or alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assaults of residents. It will also require providers to ensure there are internal processes in place for the reporting by staff of all incidents of suspected or alleged sexual or serious physical assault and that the identity of staff who make those reports is protected and that staff who report are not unfairly treated as a result of making a report.

The bill also gives the Department of Health and Ageing greater capacity to investigate complaints and to require aged-care providers to correct failures to meet their responsibilities. A new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance within the department will be responsible for this. The bill replaces the current Commissioner for Complaints with a new Aged Care Commissioner to provide an independent mechanism to hear complaints about how the department has responded to complaints and about the conduct of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency and its assessors. The Aged Care Commissioner will also have the capacity to initiate their own reviews.

This bill provides solutions for the protection of residents in aged-care facilities from sexual and physical abuse. It is a sad reality that this legislation is needed. It is a fact that abuse has occurred. I must at this point recognise the absolute courage displayed by family members of victims of abuse in these sorts of circumstances. I clearly recall the ABC Lateline program of 20 February 2006. The story revealed by the family—from memory, I think it was the granddaughters—of an aged-care resident, talking about the abuse suffered by their grandmother in an aged-care facility, was both extremely confronting and most disturbing. I understand, from my knowledge of my community, that in the past incidents of abuse have occurred within my community of Canberra—few and far between but they have occurred. There have also been allegations of less serious, but nonetheless equally disturbing, abuse and behaviour affecting some residents in aged care. This legislation is part of the government’s response to these types of events

In my experience, the majority of aged-care providers give care and security to their residents in a highly professional and highly competent manner. I recognise this and I commend them for the contribution they make to our society and to the lives of those in their care. I understand the aged-care sector has been involved in consultation processes leading to this legislation and is reasonably comfortable with the bill’s intent. The sector, however, is also supportive of a detailed inquiry, which may result in some technical amendment.

As I said earlier, the major elements of the bill are the requirement for compulsory reporting, the protection of those who report, the establishment of ‘investigative principles’ by regulation and significant changes to the aged-care complaints process. I welcome the elements of protection of those who report. The legislation requires that staff members who make disclosures must have their identities protected and must not be criticised. It further protects disclosers from civil and criminal liability. I also note the inclusion of investigation principles. The bill proposes changes to the departmental section of aged care quality and compliance which will be established as the Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance.

The Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance will have the power to investigate all complaints. In the case of a breach, the office will have the power to require the approved provider to remedy the situation and apply sanctions if necessary. I note the significance of the change to the way complaints about aged care generally will be dealt with under these new provisions. I am very aware of the frustration of people who make complaints under the current system, which has called merely for mediated resolution. This has plainly not worked, and I am only sorry to see how long it has taken to come up with an alternative approach.

A further change is the insertion of a new part into the act to establish the Aged Care Commissioner. The Aged Care Commissioner will replace the existing Commissioner for Complaints. They will have the powers to investigate complaints arising from action taken by the new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance with regard to investigations and conduct of that office. I understand the commission will also be able to examine certain decisions and complaints that may be made by the office, and make recommendations accordingly. Further provisions in the bill on the role of the commissioner include the commissioner having the capacity to undertake ‘own motion’ reviews. The commissioner will advise the minister, at the minister’s request, about any matters that may arise from examinations undertaken.

In general terms, I welcome the provisions of the bill. I must point out, however, that the process has been far from satisfactory. The bill has come into the parliament without the shadow minister being able to see it before the government recommended that it proceed to a Senate legislation committee inquiry. The investigation principles that support this bill are still in draft form and have not been sighted. They are being implemented two years after the Senate inquiry report Quality and equity in aged care found deficiencies in the operation of the current complaints resolution scheme and made recommendations to improve the system, including a recommendation for whistleblower protection. I understand the bill is now with a Senate legislation committee inquiry, through which we will be able to examine the workability of the proposals. It is quite possible that amendments may be required after that inquiry.

The calls for reformed legislation in this area are nothing new. I believe it is fair to say that the horrific stories that appeared early last year, in particular, prompted the government to finally act. But why has it taken them so long to hear, believe and understand the calls for action over a much longer period of time? I am sure I am not the only member in this place who has talked about these issues in debates in this House in the past.

The minister announced that the government would introduce this legislation in July last year, with a start-up date of 1 April 2007. I think it is pretty poor to see the government then rush a bill of this kind into the parliament while virtually admitting amendments will be needed by sending it straight off to a Senate committee. I understand that the committee must report by 1 March. That is a very tight timetable indeed.

Yes, these changes are needed and, yes, they have been slow in coming. Our older citizens and their families should feel secure in the accommodation choices they face and make. However, we must note that most abuse of older people actually occurs in the community. Elder abuse is a topic we should all be pursuing and paying greater attention to. Some of our states are conducting programs to support older people and provide community education about combating elder abuse. I believe this government could learn from those projects. This bill does nothing to address the sad reality of elder abuse broadly within our community.

I will conclude by again saying that, yes, we need these changes. I am really sorry it has taken a while for them to come. The deplorable situations that became headlines just on a year ago, I believe, were the catalyst for action suddenly occurring. I applaud the fact that action has been forthcoming, and it should not have taken those shocking abuse cases hitting the headlines. They should not have happened but they did. The community deserves to have seen this sort of action long before these cases occurred. I know from my involvement in the aged-care community over a large number of years that there has been discussion about ways to change the complaints mechanisms and the reporting mechanisms, and about ways to handle any situations that occur within facilities. What we have not talked about here, and maybe we should, is what sorts of mechanisms need to be in place to ensure that elderly people within their own homes are equally safely protected. With the greatest of good intent by all the wonderful people out there giving services, if we believe this sort of behaviour and action is required within facilities I would ask whether we need to look carefully at what we are doing outside facilities, where there has been a growth in the uptake of people choosing to receive aged-care services within their homes.

On that note, I would like to add that I also strongly support the option for the provision of aged-care services in people’s own homes, but only in cases where it suits them, where they need it and where the support structure around them can encourage and endorse it. Families are not to be made to feel bad about the fact that facility care is occasionally needed, and when it is needed we should equally support those people as well. I have been happy to speak to this bill, and I look forward to seeing the outcome of the Senate inquiry.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise to talk on the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 and to finally see addressed a very vexed and difficult issue that we have been looking at for some time in order to see the very best way that we can put in place productive and protective measures that give security for residents, security for families and security for aged-care workers and professionals.

I was interested to hear the previous speaker, the member for Canberra, talk about how the federal government should have addressed in this bill elder abuse and the abuse of older people living within the community. It is quite vexing because I cannot understand how the she would suggest that the federal government can do this. It is a law and order issue for the police. How can the government know about the types of abuse that the member was alluding to if it is happening in the home, where there are absolutely no controls by the federal government? These are primarily law and order issues for the policing of communities under the state governments. Perhaps the member was only considering possible or potential abuse by home and community care package service deliverers. I could not quite get the relativity of the criticism that she was making of this bill.

This bill will provide greater confidence to the people of Australia about the already high-quality aged care provided in our nursing homes today and every day of the year. It is true that most older Australians would want to remain as long as possible within their homes, close to family and friends and the shops, clubs, churches and community activities that they are familiar with. It can be a difficult time for people to have to relocate to an aged-care facility.

This is often the case in my electorate of Riverina. Many older rural people have to not only enter into aged care but travel to another town and community to find suitable residential aged-care beds, thus leaving their family and friends behind. In many cases, because of that tyranny of distance, they will very rarely have contact with those people in the future. For this reason, many of the people I represent in the Riverina choose not to enter a residential facility until they require very intensive support services. That, I guess, is the key statement: they do not enter until they require very intensive support services. These people need support and they become extremely vulnerable. This amendment bill will give new protection and added protection to aged-care residents. The protection will include compulsory reporting of abuse, protections for those who report those abuses and improved arrangements for investigating the complaints.

I cannot imagine how distressing it would be to experience any sort of abuse or unsatisfactory care in an aged-care facility. My strong support is behind this bill. One could use the analogy of a baby who has been put in a childcare centre and who is being abused, who has no voice, who is vulnerable but who has to rely on the carer who is giving them the support. They need to rely on that person in order to have their day-to-day needs fulfilled. A baby has to have nappies changed and meals provided. A baby has to be fed and needs general nurturing, hugging and comfort when they are hurt or sad. Those are exactly the same types of requirements that you have as an aged person. An aged person becomes vulnerable and frail and in desperation sometimes has to rely on the support of the very person who may abuse them. What a sad situation to be in.

In some conversations I have had about needs in aged-care facilities it has been raised with me that if you are simply a frail and aged person, you are able to illustrate or voice your concerns or speak about the inappropriate behaviour that might be happening to you. That would be just fine if that were the real case. But frail and aged people are people needing supportive care seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 12 months of the year and they have to rely on their carers. So they are sometimes afraid to speak out about different abuses that they may encounter simply because they are so reliant on the abuser. It leaves me cold with despair and anguish to think that you may be in a situation such that by needing the services of somebody, because your immediate family is not near or you do not have immediate family, you would have to accept physical, emotional or verbal abuse. This is extremely distressing for all of us to think about but some people are in this position.

That is why I genuinely welcome the amendments that we have before us in the House that begin the process of addressing, treating and overcoming any of the things that may be happening. Offering protection for those people who complain enhances the workplace of the aged-care worker and professional. It provides them with protection, and the will and the desire to continue working in this very worthwhile industry. It is a very low-paid industry. I think every worker in the aged-care industry deserves a much higher level of remuneration than they currently receive. But it is a lifestyle choice; it is a choice of career. It is a choice of how you want to spend your working life because you are absolutely committed to the care and wellbeing of our older Australians who, for the majority, have committed to and done so much for this nation and for its people. When you talk to those in the aged-care sector, it is staggering how absolutely committed to and involved they are with their charges in those facilities.

There were reported cases in April and July 2006 of physical or sexual abuse within aged-care facilities. This package of measures addresses those very real concerns and allegations of last year. In his consultation about and determination of what should be in this bill and how it should be delivered, the Minister for Ageing has met with as many people involved in the aged-care sector as possible. He has met with nurses in and managers of aged-care facilities, caseworkers and care workers. He has met with the residents and the very important family members as well. Most importantly, this minister has heard firsthand from those people who have been victims of abuse. That is the key area, having it hit fair between the eyes. This cannot be acceptable; under no circumstances can it ever be acceptable that anybody is in this position. So the minister will implement these conditions and guidelines in order to offer protection to our aged-care residents. The minister has also received and responded to emails from the public and has continued, as I said, to hold face-to-face meetings with a wide range of people.

I really do support the continuing and ongoing requirement for police background checks for aged-care workers and certain volunteers in the Australian government subsidised aged-care services. There have to be sensible and reasonable views on these police background checks in order that somebody who is absolutely committed to their work and who would never inflict abuse is not inappropriately dealt with. Those requirements came into effect on 21 December 2006 and will be implemented progressively from 1 March 2007. We have to have this important inclusion because it will continue to build on the already high level of care we see in and around our electorates—certainly in my electorate of Riverina.

I am very, very blessed—I know that I have raised this before and that I continually comment on this in the House—to visit my aged-care facilities on very frequent occasions. In doing so, I have become very familiar with staff and the absolute commitment that they have. Even the accreditation process that was implemented by this government has been an absolutely awesome experience. Yes, it is hard on the staff, but it is security for the residents and their families. I have listened to some discouraging remarks and discussion from the opposite side of the House during this debate, but there was no protection for aged-care residents prior to this government coming in in 1996.

There was no accreditation required to ensure the quality and standard of service provided to residents. There were no provisions for fire safety and a whole host of other areas. There was no reason to fill in paperwork and forms because they simply were not in existence until such time as this government put in those very strong accreditation schemes, and made them quite rigorous and transparent. It has been a learning process for the facilities, but I can guarantee you that, whilst it is an arduous task, each and every facility absolutely supports it. They absolutely recognise that this has to happen. They have grown and learnt enormously about themselves—about their delivery of service, about the care, comfort and quality they offer the residents and about the very requirements and needs of an elderly person that may have previously been taken for granted and not overly considered in the delivery of these services. So I am very happy to see those frequent, unannounced inspections of aged-care homes by the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency to ensure that everyone is complying with care and safety standards for residents. I welcome the increase in spot checks; that simply has to happen. That will ensure a resident’s wellbeing, day-to-day care and hygiene are looked after. Unless you are doing this you are at risk of being caught out by these spot checks.

We have a more robust aged-care complaints-handling process, with investigative powers, and the establishment, thankfully, of a new Aged Care Commissioner. I congratulate the minister on this. The Aged Care Commissioner will provide an independent mechanism for the examination of decisions made by the Department of Health and Ageing in relation to complaints investigations.

I will use my last few minutes to sum up on the compulsory reporting of incidents of sexual and certain physical assaults in residential aged care. I reiterate my support of the protection for those who report. Without that protection—without the ability to speak freely without fearing recrimination and reprisal, of being treated in that whistleblower way—we will not be able to overcome many of the issues that confront our frail and elderly people. The bill establishes the requirement for approved providers to report to the police and to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing incidents involving alleged or suspected reportable assaults. I am very supportive of this. In addition, the approved providers of residential aged-care homes must also take reasonable measures to ensure that staff members report any suspicion or allegation of reportable assaults to the approved provider and to protect the identity of any person who makes a report of a reportable assault within 24 hours of the event. Failure to have the necessary systems and protocols in place and failure to report such incidents will indicate regulatory noncompliance, leading to the possible imposition of quite severe sanctions.

I believe that the vast majority of aged-care providers, as most of the speakers in this House have indicated, give excellent care. I believe that the vast majority of aged-care workers regard their duties of care to vulnerable, frail and older Australians as absolutely sacrosanct. But when something does happen that has compromised the health and safety of one of our beloved elderly then we need to have the provisions to ensure that that situation can never happen again, and that it is remedied immediately.

I imagine that many families and aged people in aged-care homes who may have been listening to this debate or reading the newspapers to get information on the impending legislation, guidelines and rules will at last feel that aged people will truly and genuinely be protected if they are in the position of being abused. The majority of Australian people would be absolutely filled with repulsion to even contemplate that somebody could molest or abuse any older person. That kind of person and that kind of activity fill us with abhorrence. I say to anybody who may be a perpetrator of this type of behaviour in an aged-care facility or in the community: we are out to get you. You will no longer be able to inflict your insecurities or your viciousness on another person. In the long run, we are going to find those people and they are going to be dealt with. They should never stop recognising that they are under the watch of many Australian people and that their actions will not be tolerated now or in the future. If we can strengthen these bills in the future then we should. I commend the bill and I congratulate the minister.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. Let me say from the outset that Labor supports this bill. However, there are very real concerns, particularly with the timing of this bill. Indeed, these measures are very long overdue and, I believe, should have been acted upon after the Senate report two years ago. One could be sceptical about the motivation behind introducing this bill at this late stage. It does seem to coincide with recent media coverage and it certainly does seem typical of this government’s often knee-jerk reactions to any major situations in the community—as opposed to the long-term planning, assessing of situations, making decisions and putting forth legislation that needs to occur. There often seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to media reports in relation to incidents. For the issues that this bill deals with, which are so very important, we should have seen the government acting earlier than this and not just as a knee-jerk reaction to the media.

Whilst this bill is supported by Labor in principle, this government could be doing a lot more to address so many of the underlying issues within aged care. There are a whole variety of aged-care issues that need to be addressed. I have raised a lot of issues in the House on many occasions and I will discuss those in further detail later on.

This bill introduces new compulsory reporting provisions with requirements for aged-care providers to report suspected and alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assault of residents. This is supported by Labor as it is a very necessary step towards protecting our seniors. Our seniors built this nation and I believe wholeheartedly that it is absolutely right that they be treated with dignity and respect. It is certainly important that these provisions are in place. Unfortunately, as many speakers have commented in relation to this bill, elder abuse does exist within our community. So I am pleased that, after years of lobbying by various groups, these protections are finally being codified. The people they refer to are often the most vulnerable in our community and they are often in the most vulnerable of situations. They certainly deserve and need to have these protections in place.

This bill also contains important whistleblower protections so that the identity of staff who make reports is protected and to ensure that staff are not unfairly treated as a result of making such reports. Labor supports the whistleblowing provisions of this bill and I understand that they have also been supported by the union. Provisions such as these protect our valued aged-care workers when they seek to protect their clients. The union has called for provisions such as these for over two years. Whistleblower protection is vitally important in many instances, but certainly in cases such as these it is vitally important that adequate protections are in place so that people are able to come forward with the issues, action can be taken and they can be protected.

I am also pleased that the bill includes the establishment of the Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance. This will give the Department of Health and Ageing greater capacity and scope to investigate complaints. It is important that complaints are fully investigated and that the processes are in place for that to be able to occur. The appointment of a new Aged Care Commissioner should provide an independent voice in hearing complaints and also assess the department’s responses to these complaints. The establishment of the Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance and the appointment of an Aged Care Commissioner are certainly welcome.

As I mentioned earlier, the timing of this bill is somewhat suspect. If one were cynical one might suggest that this bill was rushed through by the minister on the tail of many media reports of abuse in residential aged care. This might explain why the bill was sent to a Senate inquiry even before the shadow minister was provided with a copy of it. I agree that this bill deals with some very urgent issues. However, it simply does not wash that this problem was only recently discovered. Indeed, two years have passed since the Senate report Quality and equity in aged care, which outlined the deficiencies in the current complaints resolution process, was handed down, so one could certainly ask how many of our seniors have had to endure under a system the government was told needed to be fixed and action taken.

The Senate report also looked directly at the issue of protection of whistleblowers within the industry. In fact, recommendation 17 of the Senate report was:

That the Commonwealth examine the feasibility of introducing whistleblower legislation to provide protection for people, especially staff of aged care facilities, disclosing allegations of inadequate standards of care or other deficiencies in aged care facilities.

That Senate inquiry was some years ago, but nonetheless these changes are welcome, as is any progress on aged care no matter how large or small, no matter how overdue and no matter what the motivations are. As I have said, Labor does support this bill in principle, and I understand that the aged-care sector is also in broad agreement with the principles of the bill and the outcomes that it will attempt to achieve. Any attention the government pays the aged-care industry is welcome, however belated it may be. So, whilst we may criticise the government for coming so late to the party, I guess we can console ourselves with the fact that they even showed up at all, especially on an important issue such as this.

The contribution of aged-care workers to our communities is unparalleled. In my electorate of Richmond 20 per cent of residents are aged over 65, so we have many aged-care workers and we certainly know the value of aged-care workers in our community. I have had the pleasure of attending many aged-care facilities in my electorate, because there are many in Richmond due to the many elderly people who move or retire there. I have been very fortunate to meet with many aged-care providers and workers. I have seen firsthand their dedication and devotion and the often difficult circumstances under which many of them work. But what I find really astounding about aged-care workers is that, no matter how many facilities I visit to speak with workers, I usually find that they are people who have been working in the industry for 10 or 20 years or even longer. These people are truly committed to the job that they are doing and it is very common for them to have been there for many years. It really shows the level of dedication that these people have. I will certainly always take time to commend them because they do a very difficult job at times but do it with such compassion and professionalism.

This is certainly an industry which has been underfunded, underappreciated and, I believe, a low priority of this government for the past 11 years. And, of course, we need more aged-care workers in Richmond—indeed, throughout the country—and we need more adequate training and resources for them in what is obviously a growing industry.

Unfortunately, this is not the only area of aged care where the government has fallen behind. Across the board the government has been cutting services for older Australians, from those needing access to specialist health services, to those who are literally begging for home care provisions, to those older Australians needing full-time care in nursing homes. All have suffered under this government. The first sign of contempt the government showed for older Australians was the slashing of the Commonwealth Dental Scheme in 1996. In its haste to foist this responsibility onto state governments, the federal government conveniently forgot the tens of thousands of elderly Australians who relied on the Commonwealth Dental Scheme and now have to do without, often waiting years for treatment. I have said before in this House—and I will continue to raise this point—that it is in fact a constitutional responsibility that the federal government fund dental health, but it often seems that those on the other side of the House forget this. Perhaps they need to brush up on section 51 of our Constitution, which affirms the federal government’s responsibility when it comes to dental health, which is a major issue within my electorate and indeed throughout Australia.

My electorate of Richmond is particularly affected by this government’s failings in aged care. As I mentioned, 20 per cent of Richmond’s population is aged over 65, which I believe makes it one of the oldest electorates in the country. Richmond now stands as a model for the future demographics of this country because it is predicted that, in 40 years time, 20 per cent of this country will be over 65. Richmond really is a snapshot of what our nation will look like in 40 years, so it represents an opportunity to get aged care on the ground right.

We recently had an announcement from the government of $1.5 billion in funding for aged care over five years. Whilst this is very welcome, the community have had to wait since 1997 and until the sector was facing an absolute crisis for the government to act. In his Review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care, Professor Hogan said three years ago that funding increases had to happen, and yet it has taken the Howard government till 2007 to make a decision and take some action in relation to that.

In the past 11 years the Howard government has presided over a decline in the numbers of aged-care beds available. When Labor left government in 1996 there were 92 beds for every 1,000 people aged 70 years and over, compared with only 85.6 now. In 1996 there was a surplus of 800 beds compared with a shortage of nearly 5,000 now. Whilst we see in these measures provisions for community aged-care packages or home care packages—which are very welcome because it is a major issue and of course most people want to be able to stay in their homes for as long as they can; we all understand that—the people of my electorate are specifically interested in how many CAC and EACH packages we are going to see in Richmond. We need to know specifically how the measures are going to translate into the actual CAC package that will be available to people.

With the aged-care needs in Richmond, firstly we do not have enough beds in nursing homes. When it comes to home care services, on some occasions there can be a six- or seven-month wait—and that is once people have been assessed. Being assessed is the first stage, and in some cases it can take up to 12 weeks just to get the assessment, and then there is the wait for the provision of those home care services.

Again, the people who work in that industry are true community champions. Their dedication and compassion are absolutely fantastic. Yet they have been severely underfunded by the federal government. I want to see a lot more CACPs and EACH packages and a lot more funding for the ACATs so that they can adequately make provisions for home care.

I regularly hear from local families desperate to find residential aged care, home care or simply health services for their loved ones. It is not good enough; these Australians deserve our respect, not the contempt that they have had to endure under this government. As I said, our seniors built this nation, worked hard, paid their taxes, contributed to the community and raised their families, and here they are desperately needing some assistance and often being turned away by this government.

Looking after our seniors should be one of our first priorities; it is where our attentions should lie. That is where our focus and the funding from this government should lie. We have the opportunity to put in place sufficient resources for aged care, but we must act now, particularly with the ageing of the population. We need to see a lot more action being taken by the government now. In last year’s budget the Treasurer failed to address the ever-increasing demand for aged-care services across Australia, particularly in electorates like Richmond. I urge the Treasurer not to be complacent again this year and instead to focus on the needs of elderly Australians and provide funding for the whole variety of services that they need. As the population ages, the need is obviously going to increase dramatically, so we need to have something in place because we truly are at crisis point.

As I have said, the problems facing seniors in Richmond are a sneak peek into the future. It is not good. If the government continue with their lack of commitment to aged-care services then we are going to see the same situation of desperate need for greater funding right across the country. It is in the best economic interests of the country to deal with the problems in aged-care services and funding now. They need to be addressed now. The lack of healthcare services, aged-care beds and suitable home care arrangements for our seniors create problems in the wider community.

I hear about many cases in my electorate. Many locals tell me about elderly people being forced to stay in hospital because there are no aged-care beds available, and some are going into the emergency ward because they cannot afford to see their GPs. This places greater strain upon our hospitals and is obviously very distressing for the people involved. They often have to wait, particularly in hospitals, for long periods of time before they find a bed in a nursing home. Often those hospital beds and services could be used for others who require more urgent attention.

The everyday healthcare needs of our seniors should not be dealt with in emergency rooms. That is not the role of emergency rooms. It places a strain on our wider health community. It causes such unnecessary distress for both the patients and their families. I have spoken with many locals who are very depressed because they want to assist their parents or grandparents—their relatives—at this time, and they can see that they are distressed in those situations. It affects whole families and whole communities and has to be addressed urgently.

Aged care is one of those areas in which we see the government playing the blame game, as we often see them do. It is issues like these where we need to see national leadership and would like to see the federal government working with the states to improve all areas when it comes to the provisions of aged care particularly, but health care and education as well. Yet it often seems very convenient for the government to play the blame game yet again, rather than saying: ‘We’ll take responsibility for this. We’ll fix it up. That’s what we’re here to do.’ It is easier for them to say, ‘It’s somebody else’s fault and we won’t worry about it.’ It is actually their responsibility and they need to take a lot more action.

As I have said, Labor supports this bill. It is welcome, as any improvement in aged care, large or small, is welcome. As a nation we need to prioritise aged care and put in place resources and funding to ensure that there is appropriate aged care in the future, and we need to have the foundations of that now for our ageing population. As I said, the predictions are that in 2040 we will have 20 per cent of the population aged over 65. When we look across the country, the needs of nursing homes and home care packages will be very extreme.

I support the protections that this bill will afford those within nursing homes. It is vitally important that that is in place, along with the whistleblower provisions. It is very important that those staff are protected. Ultimately those provisions are to protect residents of nursing homes, who are often the most vulnerable within our community and need to be protected because of the situations that they are in.

There are many issues in relation to aged care that I have raised previously and will continue to raise, and I call upon the government to invest more funding in these vital areas. Whilst this bill is very welcome for the protections that it provides, there is still much more that has to be done right across the board. It is a very complex issue and has to be tackled and dealt with effectively. We need to see national leadership on this issue and see the government working with the states, with the community and with the providers to make sure that as a whole we are providing a great degree of support for all of those who require this assistance in their later years. We have many nursing homes within Richmond and I will continue to fight for these issues on behalf of the constituents of Richmond. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very glad to be in this place giving support for the greater protection of some of our community’s most vulnerable members in the form of the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. I am happy to give in-principle support at this time. Last week the Selection of Bills Committee referred this bill to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs for inquiry. I look forward to reading the thoughts of people in the community on the detail of this bill and to perhaps making further comment after the report is made available in approximately one month’s time.

I am aware that allegations have been made by members of the community in the past of mistreatment of our elderly citizens within nursing homes. That prospect disgusts me, as it would all members of this House. The notion that adult people can stoop so low as to physically and/or sexually abuse these people is abhorrent. It is absolutely beyond belief that this can happen to the very people who have nurtured this generation and raised probably most of us here, the very people who have served this nation so substantially and selflessly in times of war and crisis and through depressions, paid their taxes and worked all their lives, the very people who have turned this country into the modern, democratic success that we all have the benefit of. The least that we can do for these people is to allow them to live in dignity in their twilight years.

So I totally support the full authority of the Commonwealth of Australia being harnessed and directed to protect those Australians who are residents of aged-care facilities and to investigate alleged instances of abuse. It is not just physical and/or sexual abuse involved. There are lots of other forms of abuse, such as financial abuse. Financial abuse of the elderly—that is, taking advantage of the elderly or, for that matter, others in the community—has only been drawn to the public’s attention for a relatively short time. With more people saving greater amounts for their retirement, the bigger bank balances simply make them bigger targets for the grubbier thieves and snake-oil merchants that, regrettably, are amongst us.

Interest in the physical and/or sexual abuse of elderly Australians has rarely received attention in the past, other than through the very occasional home invasion that we hear about on the nightly news where, against someone of senior years, the most pathetic of all cowards throws away his soul, beating and raping his helpless victim. It is very difficult to even approximate the incidence of abuse within aged-care facilities around the country. It has been suggested that, after applying the ratios from the United States—where mandatory reporting is necessary in law—to the Australian context, there could be as many as 80,000 instances of elder abuse occurring throughout Australia each year.

Any incidence of elder abuse is abhorrent, as I said earlier, to all of us in this House, to the majority of Australians and to Australian society. The current federal government did note allegations of rape within Victorian nursing homes in 2005, and I expect they noted similar ones in Queensland sometime later. In the Victorian case, charges of four rapes and two indecent assaults were laid against a former personal care attendant. According to reports, one alleged survivor’s grand-daughter described the situation as ‘distressing and horribly sad’—as it would be. The Prime Minister himself reportedly expressed ‘horror, disgust and almost disbelief’ at the allegations. This was only six or so months after the damning Senate report of June 2005 identified the limitations of and discouragement within the complaints resolution scheme.

So we have a Senate report drawing attention to the unsatisfactory nature of the complaints resolution scheme, six months later the Prime Minister expressing his deepest and most sincere regret that such depravity occurs, the media being fed the line—this is in February last year, mind you; almost a year ago—that ‘new laws loom on nursing home rape’, and the minister pledging to stamp out elder abuse in such homes on 13 March last year. Now, in February 2007, some 12 months after the PM expressed his disgust and the honourable senator pledged to stamp out abuse, the government sees fit to throw up this bill, referring it straight off to a Senate inquiry which is only going to report on 14 March, and then the government is expecting the bill to be implemented as early as 1 April 2007.

I have never heard of or seen such a serious issue receiving no apparent attention for so long and then, within the space of seven weeks, we hear of a bill racing its way through the system to become law before we know it. My question to the Prime Minister and to the minister responsible is: why for heaven’s sake have you taken a whole year to progress notionally satisfactory arrangements, when it only looks like taking you a couple of months to make the changes? Why has it taken a whole year to try to implement this? Why wait a year from the conviction demonstrated in the media before acting? Why wait almost two years from the Senate report’s identification of the need to act? I hope the minister has not simply cobbled this together as a part of his homework—as a part of his late-night, last-minute cram—before heading off to his electoral examination. He may have been aware of the problem since becoming minister and he may have been speaking with industry and consumer groups, but to drop a bill on the parliament, send it off to a committee and take it as read that it will be law within seven-odd weeks does diminish one’s confidence.

Whether or not this has gone to cabinet, I do not know. You cannot put much faith in anything coming from certain sectors of the current administration. They did not even seem to be aware of the fact that the Murray-Darling system is not, in fact, within Western Australia. The issue of aged-care abuse deserves serious consideration and sound legislative practice—I hope that is what we have evidence of here, despite the peculiar timetable that this government has selected—but it also deserves attention more urgent than the government has appeared to be prepared to give it.

The minister has had the unfortunate task of saving the government from itself on aged care. Only given some 12 months to resurrect the government’s pretence of caring about aged care, after 10 years of aged care sector neglect, reliance on phantasm and delivering little more than deep concern within the aged-care sector, the minister has just announced a sum of money to be delivered over five years—in an election year. That is most surprising. This, after allowing the aged-care sector to starve for funds to the point of dropping to its knees. The government created, through its own lack of interest in the sector and its obsession with playing to interest groups, a funding system that never worked. Remember the time of the kerosene baths?

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a disgrace.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all remember that. That was some years ago now but, at that point in time, the government had the bold introduction of a bond for all aged-care residents. It was dropped at the first whiff of electoral backlash. We all recall that from back in 2001.

Professor Hogan’s review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care three years ago said that funding had to be increased. In a typical response, we have seen the bravado, bluff and bulldust we are so used to from this government. They have dropped the number of aged-care beds from the high-water mark of 92 beds per thousand people aged 70 years and over in 1996 to the current 85.6 beds. In 1996 there was a surplus of 800 beds in this nation. Today, the government is running a most serious and damning deficit of some 5,000 beds, if you use the government’s own formula and quota. That is quite a turnaround in the attention paid to, and care made available to, some of our most needy and dependent Australians. As I said earlier, these people have gone through world wars, they have worked all their lives and they have built the foundations of this nation. The least governments can do for them is to offer them some dignity in their twilight years by giving them the care that they require.

Within the electorate of Hindmarsh, which covers suburbs of Adelaide’s west and south, the deficit has been growing steadily. The last numbers to come out indicated a 10 per cent increase. It was a 10 per cent increase not in beds but in—wait for it—the shortfall of beds within aged-care facilities. And that was in a very short period of time. The government is running an aged-care deficit of just over 300 beds within my area, and that is according to the formula that the government uses to put out beds. Waiting lists are phenomenal. I do not know how many people contact my office wanting help to find a nursing home bed for their parent or elderly relative, but there are many on a constant basis. Most of them cannot find something within the immediate area, but they do find the odd bed. One elderly person was asked to go to Port Augusta, 300 kilometres north of Adelaide. How can you expect someone to move 300 kilometres away from their whole family structure and their whole community?

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can’t.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think that is good enough. According to the Productivity Commission report in 2005-06, over 28 per cent of people assessed as requiring a bed are forced to wait three months or more to actually receive a bed. As I said, it is even worse in my area. I had a case of an elderly woman who was a volunteer within the electorate of Hindmarsh. She was a very active person within the community all her life. When she needed a nursing home bed, one could not be found for her, so she spent three months in the Flinders Medical Centre, in a public bed in a public hospital, until a nursing home bed was found. There have been other cases. Recently, a gentleman was in the Royal Adelaide Hospital for nine weeks because a bed was not able to be found for him within the southern or western region.

This is a pretty phenomenal issue that is affecting a lot of people. People do not need that sort of hassle at that point in their lives. As I said earlier, they need to be treated with dignity and they need to be given the care that they require and not just be shoved off into a public hospital bed with a shrug of the shoulders while saying, ‘We can’t find anything for you.’ And if the department does find something it can be 300 kilometres away and they will tell my office, ‘We did find something for them.’ I do not think that is good enough. This shows the little interest in the plight of aged care within my electorate and around the country. It also demonstrates that the government is full of rhetoric but fails to deliver. I hope that the debate around the bill currently before us leads to a more successful and beneficial outcome for the people it is meant to serve, as they have served us for many years.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by congratulating my colleague and friend the member for Hindmarsh for his thoughtful and erudite contribution to the debate. The purpose of the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 is to introduce new compulsory reporting arrangements with requirements for aged-care providers to report suspected and alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assaults of residents. It also requires providers to ensure there are internal processes in place for the reporting by staff of all incidents of suspected or alleged sexual or serious physical assault, and that the identity of the staff member who reports them is protected and that they are not unfairly treated as a result of making a report.

The bill also gives the Department of Health and Ageing a greater capacity to investigate complaints and to require aged-care providers to correct failures to meet their responsibilities. It also provides for the new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance within the department, which will be responsible for this. The other important element is that this bill will serve to replace the current Commissioner for Complaints with a new Aged Care Commissioner to provide an independent mechanism to hear complaints about how the department has responded to complaints and about the conduct of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency and its assessors. As we know, the Aged Care Commissioner will also have the capacity to initiate its own reviews.

The debate on this very important bill before the House tonight is timely indeed. Its passage through the parliament comes when we are hearing new horror stories about the abuse of patients in aged-care facilities across Australia. An article titled ‘Aged care abuse’, published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 7 February 2007 refers to new allegations of degrading treatment of aged residents. The article refers to shocking allegations of a patient sitting in a urine-soaked bed while eating her breakfast. In this day and age, that is a disgrace. It refers to an allegation that patients’ pressure sores were left open for more than an hour because of staff shortages. That is a disgrace too. It also refers to allegations of severe rashes developing on patients who are incontinent. That, too, is a disgrace.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed!

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gorton knows. These allegations are not without substance given the bona fides of the two Flinders University academics who made them. I am referring to Ms Anita De Bellis and Ms Maree Khoo. Should these serious allegations not prick the conscience of the Minister for Ageing, perhaps figures from the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency will. It found that almost 550 aged-care residents were not fed properly and more than 1,000 were not given proper medication—again, a disgrace. It also found that 14 nursing homes fell down on clinical care, 17 on medication management and six on medication—again, a disgrace.

The minister would do well to take heed of the numerous other reports of substandard care being afforded to one of the most vulnerable groups in our community. We well remember, in the 39th parliament, a former coalition minister coming to this dispatch box in relation to that disgraceful episode referred to by the member for Hindmarsh, the infamous kerosene baths case. If memory serves me correctly, it occurred in the seat of the former member for Isaacs, the late Greg Wilton. He was one of the most prolific speakers and interjectors in this place, and I can remember him shouting out on many occasions, as the then Minister for Aged Care kept coming to the dispatch box, what a disgrace it was that patients had been bathed in kerosene.

This was only a matter of five or six years ago. That was a monumental disgrace and we had the unedifying experience of the then minister defending it. I remember the minister coming to the dispatch box, if memory serves me correctly, on three separate days and taking the total 10 questions from our side—so she would have had to answer 30 straight questions—and each time she came to the dispatch box she was more unconvincing than the last. She took absolutely no responsibility for that disgraceful experience. I felt we were witnessing someone who could have been labelled ‘the mistress of projection’, because everyone got blamed for that disgraceful episode—it was the accreditation agency or it was the public servants working in the department. The member for Macarthur, who is at the table, appreciates this. It was a monumental triumph for projection. The former minister blamed everyone else and took no responsibility. I thought, ‘I am witnessing the mistress of projection,’ because there was no accountability and no acceptance of what had happened in that nursing home. It was a very sad chapter in our history that people could be treated in such a manner.

Our frailest Australians deserve the high-quality care that they are demanding, yet, despite the Howard government sitting on record billion-dollar surpluses, many residents have suffered from its reckless and lackadaisical approach to many allegations of maltreatment. The Prime Minister has previously stated that he, like any other person, is distressed by individual stories of people not being treated well. The Prime Minister stated, on 30 March 2000:

I don’t believe for a moment, no matter what system you have, you wouldn’t occasionally have some abuses.

I do not doubt the Prime Minister’s sincerity when he made that statement. In fact, I am inclined to agree with him. However, the point should not be lost that the government at the very least needs to have these systems in place.

This point is most relevant to the bill before the House tonight. It should not take incidents like the disgraceful incident of kerosene baths being delivered to people in aged-care centres for the government to look at toughening the accreditation processes. Nor should it take horrible, disgusting reports of the abuse and assault of elderly people in nursing homes before a government will get around to doing the right thing, as the Howard government has tried to do with this bill.

We have a right to expect that our parents and grandparents, some of the most vulnerable members of the community, will be well cared for in nursing homes without the spectre of kerosene baths. We have a right to expect that our parents and grandparents can live in comfort and security within residential aged-care facilities without fear of attack or abuse. The majority of Australia’s aged-care facilities offer caring and compassionate service to the elderly. However, there is clearly a minority of aged-care facilities and the rare aged-care staff member that fail to meet minimum decent standards. Systems need to be put in place to protect our parents and grandparents from them, however rare they may be.

Members will recall the ABC Lateline program which aired on 20 February 2006. Many Australians were understandably repulsed by allegations of the sexual assault by a male staff member on a 98-year-old woman and three other dementia patients in a Victorian nursing home. How could such an assault take place? It is just unthinkable. Further allegations of less serious though equally unacceptable behaviour were aired that evening. They included the allegation that an elderly woman was squirted in the face with a water bottle apparently on three separate occasions.

It is a very sad indictment of the nature of human beings that some people will be abused simply because they can be. The assault by so-called aged-care providers on the aged or the frail is an assault on all of us. Unfortunately, evidence of the abuse of the elderly in aged care continues to mount. Questions to Senate estimates reveal that from July 2006 to November 2006 there have been 23 allegations of abuse in aged-care facilities. Four of these allegations have already resulted in charges being laid. Yet the government’s moves to tighten regulation of the industry have remained lethargic at best. A more proactive approach to aged care and the need to tighten the seriously inadequate levels of regulation is taking on even greater impetus. In the coming 20 to 30 years members of the baby boomer generation—that is us—will be making the transition to aged care.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I could say, ‘Speak for yourself,’ but I won’t.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am speaking for you too, I think. We must have proper systems and proper standards and greater protections in place to make life a little easier for Australians entering their twilight years. I am sure that every member of this parliament and everyone who works in this place would be horrified if things did not improve. Fortunately, these instances are in the minority, but there should not be any instances. That is the truth of the matter. After years of hard work, the baby boomers will certainly deserve a comfortable retirement and accommodation in aged-care facilities provided by the government. This legislation is part of the government’s attempt to use the problems of the past, however belated this response may be, to protect residents in the future.

Many aspects of this bill are being implemented two years after the Senate inquiry and report titled Quality and equity in aged care. The inquiry found deficiencies with the operation of the current Aged Care Complaints Resolution Scheme and made recommendations to improve the system, yet here we are debating a bill two years later, and it is now being rammed through parliament without following proper processes. I ask again: why has it taken two years and media reports of sexual abuse in residential aged-care facilities to kick the government into gear? Why does it take the alleged rape of an elderly patient before the bill is presented to the parliament?

While Labor supports the bill, the process, as I have indicated, has been far from acceptable. It is completely unacceptable to feign concern that the important measures in this bill have a timely passage through parliament, when the government sat on some important recommendations for two years. I will say it again and again: that is a disgrace. The government has certainly not earned the right to be above scrutiny and accountability in this parliament.

I will preface my comments about specific aspects of this bill by saying that, while I am supportive of it, it is only part of a much greater package that is needed if we are to tackle seriously the abuse of older people in Australia. The truth is that most abuse of older people occurs in the community, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, this bill does nothing to address that reality.

Had the government pursued a proper timetable with this issue, we could have carefully considered some very important policy measures in much greater detail. We could have analysed other forms of abuse, including but not limited to psychological, financial and emotional abuse or neglect. We could have taken the opportunity to learn a lesson or two from some of our state governments. Rather than looking at a bill which is extremely limited in its scope, we could have looked at some very worthwhile initiatives that support the aged and provide community education about combating abuse.

Victoria’s swift action to raise community awareness of elder abuse—which I know the member for Gorton is well aware of—the implementation of a new legal and advocacy service for the elderly in community legal centres, and police checks for employees in Victoria’s aged-care sector are cases in point. I know that the member for Holt, who is sitting here listening to this debate, is also aware of that. Good on Victoria in relation to these matters. The government could have taken a leaf out of its book.

If the government had any further, serious reforms to safeguard older people it ought to have presented them to us today. It cannot rely on the flippant statement in the explanatory memorandum, which states, inter alia:

... the new initiatives that are implemented through this bill are part of a $90.2 million (over four years) package of reforms aimed at further safeguarding older people in Australian Government-subsidised aged care from sexual and serious physical assault.

It is no surprise that details are sketchy. Do the details actually exist, despite years of inertia? If they do, the community is entitled to know how much is being expended and on what, as belated as the case may be.

The specific elements of the bill I have alluded to deal with: the requirement for compulsory reporting of suspected and alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assault of residents; the protection of those who make such reports; giving the Department of Health and Ageing greater capacity to investigate complaints; the creation of a new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance; and the creation of a new Aged Care Commissioner to provide an independent mechanism to hear complaints about how the department has responded to complaints.

While concurring with my colleagues on all aspects of this bill, I only make the following observation on the new protections afforded by the bill to those who report an assault. This is a most important protection, and one that will go some way to redressing the situation where witnesses to a vile rape or assault of an aged-care resident only come forward with some trepidation. It is worth noting that there has been at least one occasion where a staff member has failed to report an assault against a 95-year-old grandmother, despite witnessing it.

I again draw the attention of members to the Lateline program broadcast on 20 February 2006 in which an unnamed aged-care worker said:

You have no recourse to say anything, because if you do say anything, you are then bullied by management, from right up, the head office right the way down. You have no recourse. There is nowhere—you put in reports and say that this is happening. Nothing is ever done. It disappears never to be seen again.

That is a disgrace. This can never be allowed to happen again. Staff members, such as the one I have just quoted, should not have to be in the insidious position of knowing what is happening but feeling helpless at instigating change.

The legislation requires that staff members who make disclosures must have their identities protected and must not be criticised. Further, it protects disclosers from civil and criminal liability. Unions, knowing better than anyone else the helplessness felt by many of their members, have been calling for whistleblower protection for some time. I ask on their behalf tonight: why have their calls been ignored? Why have staff had to endure feelings which oscillate between trepidation and helplessness?

This has been most unfair to the aged-care residents who have suffered from maltreatment, and, to a lesser extent, the staff who have witnessed such maltreatment. I hope that staff will feel empowered by the provisions in this bill and never have to endure a sense of helplessness ever again. It is with this in mind that I will support this legislation, bearing in mind the need for far more comprehensive reforms in the future.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Lowe for his very passionate and eloquent contribution on an issue that concerns many in my electorate, where I have a large and growing number of people who are 55, 65 and over. They are very concerned about their security and protection when they go into a nursing home. Labor supports the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 as a step in the right direction. I would like to mention a particular case that someone contacted my office about to highlight the point that this is a step in the right direction but that more needs to be done.

I have contacted the gentleman concerned and he has allowed me to mention his name. His name is Alan Rogers and his mother lives in a nursing home. Alan is concerned because his mother is elderly and frail—just the sorts of preconditions that the member for Lowe was talking about. In his mother’s nursing home there are 30 elderly people in high care. I will not name this nursing home. They are looked after by two people during the evening—two people looking after 30 people with high-care needs. He was very concerned about this. For example, what would happen if one person was sick and there was only one person looking after those 30 people, including his mother? As I said, his mother has high-care needs.

He contacted a federal member of parliament to get the ratio of carers to people because, being a reasonable individual, he thought that the government would have established guidelines for looking after elderly people at night in a nursing home that would have said that there should be, for example, three nurse carers for 30 people, or four because of their high-care needs. What Alan found was that there were no guidelines. There is nothing in the regulations that effectively says that there has to be a set number of carers. There is no set ratio. He found that quite staggering. In fact, when he contacted my office I basically disbelieved him—I did not believe that there would not be a ratio. You would think that, in terms of the care of patients and some of the most vulnerable people in our community, there would be a stipulated standard—a minimum number of people—but there is not. To confirm that, we checked with the minister’s office and we were told that there is no stipulated ratio. That does not provide a measure of comfort to people like Alan, and he has asked that I raise his concern in this place tonight. This government has not mandated a specific number of carers to look after elderly and frail people like his mother. And I support him in this because I do think he requires that information.

Vulnerable and elderly people feel disempowered, particularly with management of nursing homes. I say at the outset that most management and staff of nursing homes look after their charges with a great deal of care, concern and compassion. This is not an attack on the nursing home system per se. What we are trying to do is afford a very vulnerable group of people maximum protection. This could be your mother, your father, your sister or your brother. So it is very important, considering the contribution they have made to the community, that they are afforded maximum legislative protections to ensure that you can leave someone like Alan’s mother in a nursing home late at night knowing that she is going to receive the maximum standard of care available and all of the protections that she deserves.

My time is running short but there is another example of a nursing home in the Dandenong area where an elderly lady was becoming increasingly incapacitated. She could not speak English and required the help and care of two fantastic daughters to assist her throughout the day, particularly when she was being washed and showered. There was a change in the management of the nursing home and the management said that they could not be present during these times. This caused the over-80-year-old woman great distress and she was very distraught at her rights being taken away from her. It was only through a very long complaints process that this matter was resolved.

So, whilst this legislation moves in the right direction, I do not think it is the panacea that the minister’s second reading speech would have us believe. This legislation is a step. Elderly people do not deserve to continually be living in fear. Because we have more and more people, particularly in my electorate, shifting into nursing homes and aged-care facilities, it is the responsibility of the government and us, as legislators, to offer the maximum form of protection and to ensure the reporting of suspected and alleged sexual abuse and serious assault of residents. We also want to make sure that the staff feel protected and supported when coming forward with such allegations. This legislation takes that step forward and therefore we support it. I know we are moving to the adjournment very shortly so I will finish on that note.

Debate interrupted.