Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In around eight weeks time the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety interim report is set to be handed down. People in this place and, of course, people around Australia will not forget that essentially this royal commission is a government calling a commission into itself; it has been in charge of aged care in this country, solely responsible for it, for the last six years.

There has been a lack of reform and a lack of drive from this government when it comes to fixing some of the issues in aged care. Whether we talk about residential aged care and the cuts that the current Prime Minister made to aged care in his first two budgets—the $1.5 billion ripped out from the highest care daily fees that were paid for those in residential aged care or the half a billion dollars taken out in the budget before—or the dementia supplement that was taken in Abbott's first budget in 2014, this government needs to accept responsibility for where we are today in aged care.

We currently have more than 128,000 older Australians waiting for home care. There are more people on the waiting lists than there are home care packages available in Australia today. We have 1.3 million older Australians currently relying on the aged-care system. The government cannot afford to muck this up. When it receives the interim recommendations on or around 31 October, I call on the government to ensure that these interim recommendations, or the interim report, are made public. I also call on the government to ensure that it acts as soon as it has these recommendations. There have been many, many reports and reviews into aged care in Australia already, but this royal commission is of course a chance for older Australians, their families and their loved ones to tell their stories about what has happened to them when trying to access quality care in Australia today.

It's also a chance for the many workers—the 380,000 that it's estimated are aged-care workers in Australia—to talk about their stories and about how they feel, looking after older and vulnerable Australians and how they go home at night stressed and worried because they can't provide the care that they want to because they simply don't have enough workers or enough time to provide that care. It is a sad state of affairs in a country as wealthy as Australia when we talk about budget surpluses and we have older Australians who are not getting the services they need and they deserve. The government cannot continue to sit back and not invest in aged-care services in this country; not deal with the home care package crisis; not deal with the Commonwealth Home Support Program issues; and not deal with the issues in residential aged care.

The latest Stewart Brown report says that many not-for-profit operators, particularly in regional Australia, are operating at a loss. We know that it is difficult to retain quality staff in aged care because there simply aren't enough staff and they aren't paid enough. There are so many issues to deal with in aged care in the country at the moment. The government needs, when it gets these recommendations, to start to deal with some of these issues. It cannot wait until the final report, due in April 2020, to do something about it. We need to ensure, and older Australians are relying on it, that the government act as soon as possible. It is simply untenable to wait until April 2020 for the government to start to respond to some of the royal commission's issues. It would be several budget cycles going forward if we were to wait for that. Once it has the interim report and recommendations, the government should start to respond as quickly as possible.

We will continue to work with consumers, with older Australians, with providers and with the loved ones and relatives of those who are accessing care to ensure that the government is held to account and to ensure that the government responds quickly as it possibly can. We cannot afford any more months or any more years of inaction from this government. After six years, a lack of reform, four ministers and billions and billions of dollars ripped out of the aged-care system, it is not okay for this government to sit back and not act. I, like many Australians, expect that the government will act.

We have also had a situation recently in Queensland with Earle Haven. The government said it did not know what was happening at Earle Haven until the day it happened. After 22 complaints about the owner of Earle Haven and two visits from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission this year, I ask: how is it possible that the government did not know that these elderly residents were left at risk? The government needs to do more and it needs to act.