Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have previously spoken in the House about elder abuse, a problem within society that appears to be getting worse. It seems that whichever way one turns older Australians are being taken advantage of—particularly with regard to their finances.

Since 2013 the coalition government has consistently sought to cut payments and services to older people. Were it not for the Labor opposition the cuts would have been much deeper. The private sector has been equally ruthless. Energy companies are exploiting older people with their energy contracts, and then there are businesses that now charge to mail out accounts. There are even charges being applied for payment of accounts if the electronic transfer payments systems are not used. That forces older people to become internet technology users, which in turn leaves them vulnerable to internet scammers. I have personally spoken with older people who have had tens of thousands of dollars stolen from them by very clever internet scammers.

There are two areas which are of particular concern to me. Firstly, there are the rip-offs that are now occurring in the retirement village sector, with some unethical operators fleecing residents of tens of thousands of dollars in exit fees. Again, I have had to intervene personally in some of those matters. In some cases we have been successful in getting back the money.

The recent Four Corners program highlighted this matter. Whilst it is largely a state government responsibility, it is time that the federal government also stepped in and led the way with uniform national laws. The federal government has its own questions to answer, especially in relation to the extraordinarily long waiting lists for ACAT assessments and aged-care packages—particularly level 3 and 4 packages, which are virtually not available. I heard the member for Blair speak earlier about this very matter. When packages are allocated, it also seems that most of the money is swallowed up by administration fees charged by the provider, leaving very little money for real services.

Lastly, there are real and widespread concerns about the disgraceful level of care being provided by some residential aged-care facilities. I stress the word 'some' because there are some good operators in the sector. Clearly, the government-approved accreditation agencies are failing in their duty as much as the bad providers are. How they fail to detect the problems is beyond my comprehension.

Older people deserve much better than they are getting from this government, and it is time that the government stepped up and showed them the respect they deserve by giving them the support they need.