Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I moved this motion that stands in my name on the Notice Paper. Australia has an ageing population; therefore, as a nation it is imperative that we have a positive approach to ageing, one which respects older people, provides them with opportunity and financial security plus a strong aged-care framework to provide care and support to frail aged Australians—people that look to government to make sure that they are taken care of when they are in need. This is a wide-ranging motion. It covers the age pension, the age-care system and helping older people stay in work longer. This government has a very proud record when it comes to financial support for older Australians. We have delivered the most significant reforms to the pension system in its 100-year history. Since 2009 Labor reforms have delivered increases to the maximum pension of $172 a fortnight for a single and $182 a fortnight for a couple. The single rate pensioner now is $4,300 better off a year. The maximum rate pensioner couple will now be $4,500 a year better off.

Key aged-care reforms have taken place. The government has invested $59.5 billion in aged care over the next four years. That is our commitment: $40 billion funding for residential care over the next four years from 2012-13, and more than $13.4 billion estimated revenue for the residential care industry this year. Believe me, the industry is very pleased with being able to expect this additional funding, because they have struggled in the past. That will be $78,500 estimated average total revenue per resident, and $53,200 estimated average funding per resident from the Australian government this year. That is a big increase. There is a 26.7 per cent increase in income per resident. There is an 8.2 per cent annual increase in funding per resident and an 8.5 per cent increase in funding per resident. That is looking at a CPI increase of 2.7 per cent over three years. So they are big increases in funding. That will make a real difference to the lives of older people. It will provide additional support and care to help them remain in their home longer; provide additional help for carers to access respite and other support; deliver better residential care; strengthen the aged-care workforce; support consumers and research; make better health connections; tackle the nation's dementia epidemic; support older Australians from diverse backgrounds; and build a system for the future.

The government has made a big commitment to dementia. It recognises the importance of having a healthcare system that responds to the challenges. It is estimated that almost a million people will have some form of dementia by 2050. The Standing Committee on Health and Ageing is currently undertaking an inquiry into early diagnosis and early intervention. I believe—and I know that all members on this side of the parliament believe—that is absolutely imperative. The funding of $123 million is now available for people with dementia for home care packages.

The other aspect of this legislation refers to mature age workers. There are 3.8 million mature age workers in Australia, and many want to work. Actually, my husband is well over the retirement age, and he is still at work. Last year over-55s were around 16 per cent of the labour force, and that is compared to 10 per cent in 1980. There have been numerous government incentives to encourage workers to stay in the workforce. The appointment of Australia's first Age Discrimination Commissioner is also a commitment to older Australians. This government recognises that older people can make enormous contributions to our society both in the workforce and in the community generally. And as such we are committed to the future for older people. (Time expired)

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Shortland for her motion. It gives me the opportunity to reflect on what wonderful contributions our older or senior Australians have made to our community over the years. I note that the member makes reference in her motion to the positive reform agenda for older Australians and claims to have delivered enormous commitments and investment to aged care by increasing the age pension, reforming the aged-care system and helping older Australians work longer. There are a few little bits and pieces there. We have had the change in superannuation so that people still working can get super between 70 and 74, and I think that is a positive move. Certainly in my previous life in the financial services sector that was a frustration for a lot of my clients that were still working in that age bracket.

This is a sector that is absolutely buried underneath layers of regulation and red tape and is possibly one of the most regulated sectors in our country. I think it is instructive to note that since 2007 there have been more than 20 reviews and inquiries relating to ageing and aged-care issues, including three by the Productivity Commission. It took over 250 days for this government to respond to just one of these reports, the 2011 landmark Productivity Commission report.

Of all of these reports, only a few recommendations have been picked out by this government. They have increased the age pension and they support older Australians staying in the workforce longer, which, as I have said, we on our side have supported. But at the end of the day a total of $1.6 billion has been cut out of the aged-care sector, resulting in local aged-care providers finding it really difficult to cope. Aged-care nurses are spending a third of their shifts doing paperwork to keep up with the excessive regulations placed on this sector. By all means this is a sector that needs regulation, but not in this current form. Imagine your elderly parent or grandparent missing out on essential care because a nurse is too busy working on paperwork to attend to their needs. Our older Australians deserve better. They have contributed so much to our country and have made it the great place that it is for us to enjoy today, and we need to ensure that they get the care they deserve.

It is interesting looking at this motion and I think it is worthwhile separating out the issues, because quality aged care is a separate issue to pension increases and having older Australians in the workforce. If we are talking about a positive reform agenda for aged care, then we are not quite there under the current government. Since the last federal election, the coalition has continued to listen to the aged-care sector. We confirm that we are committed to supporting older Australians with better and more sustainable aged-care services. Our agreement will deliver better and more affordable aged care by reducing red tape and enabling nurses to get back to nursing and taking care of residents; by providing certainty for aged care for older Australians, underpinned by a high-quality framework; by delivering value for money through revised subsidy arrangements; by ensuring certainty for the aged-care workforce, by establishing a more flexible and viable aged-care provider network to meet the care needs now and into the future; and by ensuring that the comfort and safety of older Australians is maximised.

The coalition wants reform in partnership with the aged-care sector; it does not believe that fundamental reforms should be imposed from above. If successful at the next federal election, we will immediately commence consultation with stakeholders in the ageing and aged-care sector on the framework of the aged-care provider agreement, including consideration of the recommendations of the Productivity Commission. We in the coalition will always support measures to assist the senior members of our community. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday, 1 December it was my great pleasure to attend the Belconnen Senior Citizens Club's 30th anniversary party. I went along with my two older boys—my five-year-old Sebastian and my three-year-old Theodore—who I must say were wonderfully feted by the members of the Belconnen Senior Citizens Club. This is a club which is focused on sports and recreation. There are older Australians in the Belconnen area who are engaged in dancing clubs, walking clubs and sports of all kinds. Mal, Noelene and Marj were particularly generous in looking after Sebastian and Theodore, and I also enjoyed seeing new ACT MLA Yvette Berry and her father, Wayne, at the event. It was a great reminder, if one were needed, of the vigour and energy of older Australians in my electorate of Fraser.

Over the last 40 years, life expectancy in Australia has increased by around a decade. One of the great thought experiments is: which would you prefer—an extra decade of life or the economic growth that has come over that period, with approximately a doubling in real per capita incomes? I have barely met a person who says that, if they had to choose between the two, they would take the money over the years. Most of us value that extra decade of life far more than even a doubling in income. It is a reminder of the great advantages of Australia and of the health and lifestyle reforms that have increased longevity. When I hear commentators talk about the 'problem' of ageing, I am tempted to reply—as Minister Shorten sometimes does—'It beats the alternative.' Certainly there are challenges that Australia faces in an ageing population but they are great challenges to have.

On 19 November last year Minister Butler came to my electorate and held with me an aged care forum to speak with Canberrans about the aged care changes that the government is putting through in its Living Longer Living Better aged care package. The package is improving the wages in the aged care sector and making sure that people have greater access to choice and information. Older Australians and their loved ones often have to make quick decisions and it is important that people have access to all of the information in front of them. It is important that people looking at retirement home options realise that they do not just have to pay bonds but that they can pay daily payments. It is important that people have support if they want to stay in their own homes, as so many do.

The forum was the most popular event I have run in my electorate. I held another on 7 December, which again packed out the room in the Griffin Centre. It was a real reminder of the interest that Canberrans have in understanding the government's aged care reforms. This is a government that is committed to improving dignity in retirement. When we increased the single age pension for someone on the full rate by $1,600 a year, it decreased the poverty rate. The University of New South Wales's Peter Whiteford estimated that it reduced by about a fifth the number of people living in poverty in Australia, a massive reduction.

Now the government's increase in universal superannuation from nine to 12 per cent is again going to see more Australians enjoying dignity in retirement. By bringing down the tax rate on superannuation contributions of lower-income Australians to zero, we are encouraging low-income Australians to save for their retirement. Recognising that low-income earners are disproportionately women, who have lower superannuation balances, this is a measure that particularly advantages women, which is why taking it away would so disadvantage low-income Australians and women. This government is proud of its reforms, of its assistance to people in the aged care sector and of increased longevity in Australia.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the member for Fraser when he says that we should never complain about being old. Certainly, Nationals New South Wales Senator John Williams said to me only recently that none of us should complain about getting old because some Australians, indeed many people in the world, do not get that choice and unfortunately die far too young. This motion is about aged care and Australia's ageing population. For many, it is Australia's most challenging social issue. Present projections have it that over-85-year-olds, who currently make up 1.7 per cent of the population, will represent 5.7 per cent of the population in Australian by the year 2047. How we deal with this as a nation and how we meet the growing costs of aged care will be critical for future Commonwealth governments.

While Labor's living better package claims to, as the motion states, deliver enormous commitment and investment in aged care, there are significant gaps. This is probably because the government brought the announcement of this package forward a few weeks and the same old Labor spin doctors were at it again, unfortunately. The government claimed this was part of its positive aged care plan, which this motion seeks to acknowledge, but it was, I believe, just an idle attempt by Labor to give the impression it was doing something in aged care when it was really years away. Sure, a headline figure of an additional $3.7 billion over five years sounds impressive but, like most of Labor's ideas and promises, the devil is indeed in the detail. This so-called new spending initiative is a combination of the government's means testing as well as the reallocation of funding from other existing projects. The actual amount of new money being spent on aged care is only $577 million, a far cry from the $3.7 billion headline.

The coalition's response to this plan was cautious. We wanted to wait and see what the actual detail of this plan was. It is fortunate that we did, because there are some significant oversights. In Labor's usual style, it has missed an opportunity to reduce red tape. The aged-care sector has been crying out for somebody who can go in and fully cost a plan which will be positive for them. This was evident when the shadow minister for aged care, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and I toured aged-care centres in Griffith, in my electorate, last November. Labor could have made the system much better. But it did not. So many people in my electorate are complaining about this very fact. Labor had the opportunity to increase productivity in this crucial system, but it chose not to. In an industry where aged-care centres are wallowing in red tape, the government's Living Longer Living Better package will, unfortunately, place additional demands on an already crowded system. In fact, the coalition has been advised that at present some aged-care nurses can spend up to one-third of their time on bureaucratic paperwork. There were reviews and consultations, as there always are with this government, but the government has ignored this advice and cherry-picked from the Productivity Commission's report, taking only a few of its recommendations.

The sector has some significant concerns about Labor's new plan, which this motion fails to acknowledge. Chief among these is the government's decision to rip $1.6 billion out of the aged-care funding instrument over the next four years. These cuts, according to the government, have been made because of assertions of rorting within the sector and for which there has been no substantive evidence produced to date. These are not cuts in places where they are needed, such as unnecessary bureaucracy. These cuts are coming out of funding for essential services such as reclassified patients who are high care to medium care. This will lead to staff cuts in aged-care homes and place an even greater demand on an already ailing system. It is no wonder we saw headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald 'Minister defends cash cut for aged' and in the Australian Financial Review 'Nursing homes face subsidy growth limit', because this government and the minister have a problem of their own making.

According to many, aged care is the single most challenging social issue that governments will face in the future. The coalition has a plan to restore investment in the industry so that it can cope with increasing demands into the future. The coalition has spent a lot of time talking, as Senator Fierravanti-Wells and I did in Griffith in November, with the grassroots sectors of the aged-care industry to ensure that we get the plan right.

At the last federal election the coalition set out its commitment to the delivery of a high-quality, affordable and accessible aged-care scheme which meets the needs and preferences of older Australians. For the next election we the coalition are committed to reducing the inhibiting red tape this government has placed on the industry and restoring a real and sustainable plan which meets the needs of an ageing population. We will negotiate an aged-care provider agreement with the aged-care sector. The first ever aged-care provider agreement will set the framework for aged care and ageing in Australia over the next four years. We will bolster Medicare by reinstating the private health insurance rebate as soon as we responsibly can. So while this motion seeks to acknowledge the government's positive plan, we must remember that, as with all of Labor's promises, this is more smoke and mirrors.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the private member's motion on the reform agenda for older Australians, moved by the member for Shortland. The member for Shortland is a strong advocate of all aged-care issues, so it is a great pleasure to be speaking on her motion this evening. The quality of life for elderly Australians is particularly important and it is more so in my electorate, which is one of the most multicultural and diverse electorates in Australia and has indeed one of the largest ageing communities. Ageing is an integral part of the life cycle where nothing is quite as complicated because of cultural and linguistic sensitivities as caring for elderly people and their very complex needs. Increasing the age pension, reforming the aged-care system and helping older Australians stay at work longer are all part and parcel of addressing those needs and they are being implemented by the Gillard Labor government.

Caring for the aged is an issue that affects all communities and all sectors. I find this is continuously reiterated to me through my personal work with my constituents and also in my dealings with community groups, both in my electorate and elsewhere, particularly given the ageing of Australia's post-Second World War migration, otherwise known as the ageing of Arthur Calwell's new Australians. Of the ageing new Australians—they once were new Australians—the Greek and Italian communities have the largest number of ageing people, and they are followed by the Chinese, Indians, Turks and many others who came to Australia during that period.

I have spoken many times to those communities and almost all of them advocate—and these are alarm bells that we need to heed—that what is now paramount is the proper care of the elderly and in particular the care of the elderly from migrant communities, because the quality of that care is a hallmark of any civilised society. The ageing of migrant communities brings special challenges that we are all very familiar with. Just as newly arrived migrants need special services to assist their settlement into this country in the first five years of their arrival, so too, at the other end of the spectrum, elderly migrants require culturally and linguistically sensitive services to cater for their needs as they age. This is the case no matter how long they have lived here. Many of them have been here for many decades. The date 29 August marks 50 years since my father and his young family, including me, first disembarked at Station Pier at Port Melbourne. It is for those reasons that I am very pleased to say that the government has made important headway on reforming the aged-care system when it comes to caring for our ageing people and in particular our ageing migrant population.

In December last year I welcomed the release of the National Ageing and Aged Care Strategy for People from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds. The strategy will help inform the delivery of Living Longer Living Better, which is part of the government's $3.7 billion aged-care reform package. As we all know, ageing brings with it a returning emphasis and reliance on the mother tongue. Older people, no matter how fluently they have acquired a second language—in this case, English—or subsequent language during their lifetime, tend to feel most comfortable in their original language as they grow older. Taking into account that about 20 per cent of people aged 65 years and over were born outside Australia and by 2021 that number will rise to 30 per cent, it is vital that we are sensitive to this fact when planning and providing services to older Australians of non-English-speaking background.

The migrant elderly—many of them in my electorate—often have very different cultural, linguistic and spiritual needs, and that can affect the type of care and services they require and are provided for. I congratulate the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, because he has recognised that this community sector has very important needs and unique challenges that are faced by the elderly, their families and their aged-care providers. He has responded to those needs through the National Ageing and Aged Care Strategy for People from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds. That is the basis upon which the government will assist in helping this sector develop highly specialised needs. (Time expired)

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Shortland, as the ageing population is a major issue for this and future governments. I agree that we must guarantee support for older Australians and, in particular, that reform of the aged-care sector is particularly important for our ageing population. The motion does not admit that this government was forced to increase the age pension as a result of its own economic incompetence and its failure to rein in the real cost-of-living pressures that affect older Australians. Governments do not support older Australians by implementing the world's biggest carbon tax economy-wide without giving one cent to almost 300,000 self-funded retirees. Governments do not support older Australians by increasing the cost of private health insurance and governments do not support older Australians by increasing taxes on superannuation and reducing the amount that Australians can contribute to their own superannuation.

We cannot support our senior Australians if we fail to implement real reform for the aged-care system, particularly at a time when Australians are expecting more and more from aged care. Yet this is exactly what the Labor government has been doing since it took office in 2007. I continue to meet with many aged-care providers in my electorate who are disappointed with the government's response to the Productivity Commission's Caring for older Australians report of 2011. The government missed the opportunity at that time to implement real supply-side reform in what many see as a wasteful, unfair and inefficient aged-care approvals round process, where providers applied for packages from the government. It has been conveyed to me by people who operate in the aged-care sector that resources are continuing to be wasted and taxpayer funds are not being efficiently allocated because clients have no, or very limited, input into choosing a provider.

They are also rightly concerned about the government cutting $1.6 billion from the Aged Care Funding Instrument. Cutting $1.6 billion is not a sign of a government acting in the long-term interests of the industry. As we move from the baby boomer generation to the next, users of aged-care services will no longer meekly accept what they are given, as many Australians had to do during tough economic times earlier last century. It is therefore integral to the future care of older Australians that we implement policies that give clients and their families the ability to choose their own provider to deliver government funded services which they have been assessed as needing.

Secondly, the Labor government is making it more difficult for older Australians to support themselves by increasing taxes on superannuation. The Treasurer has run out of taxpayers' money and is now resorting to attacking the hard-earned money and savings in Australian superannuation funds. It is likely that the quality of life and living conditions for older Australians will worsen in the future because we have a government which is ripping the heart out of the superannuation system. Despite having already increased taxes on super by $8 billion, the government has not ruled out further attacks on super. This has created enormous uncertainty for retirees and those approaching retirement. The government promised in 2007 that they would not change super taxes, but that is exactly what they have been doing ever since. By their actions, they will continue to increase taxes on super in the future. They have cut the government's co-contribution scheme—aimed directly at assisting the lowest paid in this country—by $1,000, a cut worth $3.2 billion to their bottom line.

Lastly, the motion claims that the government is helping older Australians stay at work longer. They have recently announced that they are going to legislate flexibility. You do not help older Australians stay at work longer by simply legislating that someone has the right to a part-time job, as if that right somehow compels a local small business owner to employ someone that they cannot afford. At the end of the day, governments do not create jobs; businesses do. With jobs, governments can go two ways. They can stifle business, overregulating them and controlling them with so many regulations that the likelihood that businesses will employ any Australians, particularly older Australians, is reduced. Alternatively, governments can get out of the way and ease conditions and regulations on small business so that businesses can grow and there may actually be jobs for older Australians to be employed in in the future.

I would also like to take this opportunity to commend Val French and the work she does with the Older People Speak Out, OPSO, organisation. They are great advocates for the aged in our community, not only for having older people working but also for their rights going forward.

Debate adjourned.