Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition government's budget has put higher income earners and big business ahead of vulnerable older Australians. The Prime Minister, when he came to power, usurping the member for Warringa, promised fairness, but this budget is fundamentally unfair to older Australians. The budget gives tax cuts to the big end of town at the cost of $1.2 billion to aged-care services for older Australians. These savage cuts will hit older Australians in residential aged-care facilities the hardest, with a 50 per cent cut to the indexation of complex healthcare subsidies.

The Prime Minister's budget is also telling for what it omits. The budget has failed to provide any direction for the future of aged-care reforms, and I really must question whether the minister has read the aged-care road map that it took her months and months to discover somewhere in the bowels of her office here in Canberra after it had been delivered to her by the committee inquiring into the aged-care sector. Once again, the budget has failed the 353,000 Australians living with dementia. While the Prime Minister has plans for the top end of town, he has no interest in addressing what is the second-leading cause of death in the country. There is no funding in the budget whatsoever for any concept such as dementia friendly communities, which has been adopted overseas as world's best practice. There is no funding whatsoever for an aged-care workforce strategy nor even any mention of an aged-care workforce strategy. There is no plan at all in the budget for an age friendly Australia, even though this is world's best practice adopted by the WHO.

When this government came to power, one of their first acts was to get rid of the aged care workforce supplement, which was addressing problems in terms of development of an aged-care workforce. We are going to need to treble this workforce in the next few decades. Then, after slashing that funding, putting it back in and seeing no appreciable difference in terms of the development of a workforce, they cut the funding for dementia and severe behaviours, a supplement which we had provided. Then they cut the aged care payroll tax supplement, which was directly affecting the for-profit providers. They cut 15 per cent out of the budget last time for the development of workforce. Then they rebadged and put together health and aged-care workforce development and, in MYEFO, cut $595 million. Then, in MYEFO, they cut $472 million for complex needs. Now, in this budget, they have cut another $1.2 billion. What does it say about the coalition's attitude to older Australians that they have inflicted $3.1 billion in cuts in three years for services and residential home care, Commonwealth home support and dementia funding for older Australians?

Leading Age Services Australia spokesperson Beth Cameron said that the additional $1.2 billion in cuts to direct care services reveals that the Turnbull Government and Minister Ley are in denial about the true cost of providing complex care to older Australians. ACSA—Aged and Community Services Australia—said in their press release that last night's budget was:

… lacklustre for aged care with the most significant announcement being a downgrade in funding to counteract higher than anticipated growth in expenditure.

…   …   …

ACSA is disappointed there was no substantial commitment to the implementation of any aspect of the Aged Care Roadmap which proposed freeing up supply …

Alzheimer's Australia, disappointed again, said:

Tonight's Federal Budget contains no new major policies or programs that would significantly improve the lives of the more than 353,000 Australian's living with dementia and their carers.

What a disgrace this government is with respect to older Australians. It will take the election of a federal Labor government under Bill Shorten to address issues in relation to aging and aged care, to show some vision for this country— Time expired)