Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The growing crisis in aged care is a disgrace, and we must speak out and not accept this as okay. The latest figures that I've seen reveal that more than 100,000 Australians are now languishing in limbo, waiting for home care packages so they can get appropriate care. There are more than 60,000 senior Australians now with no package at all—nothing; zip. More than 40,000 have a package at a lower level than they actually need. This includes nearly 80,000 older Australians waiting with higher needs, many with dementia.

Numerous people in my electorate in recent months have been stuck at home with no care. Their families are now coming to our offices in despair and in distress. In light of this, what did the minister responsible for this crisis, this calamity, suggest that people do? He said, 'Even if, after you've waited a year, the government hasn't properly assessed your circumstances and you get an offer below what you actually need, then just take what you can get'—take what you can get. He said, 'I would encourage people on waiting lists that, whatever level you're offered, you should just take that offer'—like it or leave it.

The government have known about this problem for over a year and have done nothing. It has just crept up on them, with no action. The minister's a decent man—he is—but he's not up to the job, and he's just repeating now the government's nonsense. When asked about this, he said, 'Well, senior Australians can't be cared for because of budgetary pressures and fiscal constraints.' Yet this is a member of a government who voted to give himself a tax cut, to give the high-income earners of Australia a tax cut, and now he's voted to give a $65 billion handout to big business, for negligible benefits to the economy—maybe one per cent economic growth in 20 years. It is an old trick, isn't it—tax cuts for the rich and multinationals, while you cut services and raise taxes on poor and working people. It's not good enough.

Even worse, there's no plan. There's no end in sight for the backlog. And the waiting list, the government has said, will just continue to grow. The Turnbull government's own website states that the most vulnerable Australians will be waiting, now, more than one year for a package. It's shocking that this crisis has been worsening for months and yet the government has done nothing.

The government could have made a genuine financial commitment in the midyear budget update. They could have done that. Instead, they've done nothing. They've buried their heads in the sand, despite Labor's calls for over a year to address the problem.

It is incredibly distressing for people in my community. One of the most distressing things I do—I'm sure it is a distressing thing that other members do—is to talk to families with no hope in sight. The uncertainty surrounding the lack of a plan makes it impossible for families to even plan for the care of senior Australians while they wait, and wait.

The mess can't be fixed overnight, but the government needs to find the funding and announce a plan and a timetable so that families at least know what to do. It comes on top, of course, of its complete lack of response to the revelations last year in the residential aged-care sector, which—while state and territory governments are responsible for this regulation—also needs a national approach. (Time expired)