Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor has been saying for a long time that the aged-care system is in a state of crisis. The government accused us of scaremongering. In fact, it accused us of elder abuse by raising the crisis in aged care, such was its disdain for any criticism of a system clearly in crisis.

At least the government has listened now, albeit on the eve of a Four Corners expose, and will establish a royal commission, but it hasn't rolled back years of funding cuts. Billions of dollars has been cut from aged care in the last five years by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, and it's no wonder that the system is in crisis. It is a full-blown crisis, as Four Corners demonstrated. Australians are rightly appalled by the shocking stories we've seen and the crisis in our nation's aged-care system, particularly in the standard of care being delivered in some nursing homes. Labor supports a royal commission into the abuse and the cover-ups in the aged-care sector, but older Australians cannot wait one to two years for the royal commission to report before the government acts. Prime Minister Morrison, as Treasurer, cut $1.2 billion from aged care in his first budget, and he cut residential aged-care places in this year's budget. What was that called in the budget papers? It was called 'efficiencies'. Prime Minister Morrison characterised his $1.2 billion cut to aged care as a 'little fact' in question time this week, an insult to every older Australian who relies on care.

The Prime Minister continues to say that it isn't a cut, even though the budget papers state in black and white that it is. The result of the cut is that the funding per resident has been cut by 11 per cent. These so-called efficiencies have caused ridiculous time pressures on staff, rationing of incontinence pads and real cutbacks in the quality and quantity of food and care. And that isn't just with nursing homes: waiting times for home care packages have blown out under this government. There are 108,000 people waiting for a home care package—which keeps people at home and out of residential care—including 88,000 people with high needs, many of whom are living with dementia. The so-called extra money that the government announced in the budget to bring down the waiting times came from residential aged care. It was cut from residential aged care. To make matters worse, the Liberals have also cut the dementia supplement funding that was meant to go to older Australians who need help the most. The quality standards and reporting system isn't working. There aren't enough aged-care workers, and they aren't given enough pay, respect or support.

Pension waiting times also have increased. Senate estimates tell us that the age pension median processing times have blown out from 36 days in 2016-17 to 49 days in 2017-18. I have one constituent who came to my office who submitted an application in February and in August still had not heard anything back from Centrelink—that's six months.

We must ensure vulnerable older Australians get the support they need, and we need to give elderly Australians the care and respect that they deserve. This cannot wait.