Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

  (a) there are 120,000 older Australians waiting for their approved home care package, with many waiting more than two years for the care they have been approved for;

  (b) more than 16,000 older Australians died waiting for their approved home care package they were assessed for in 2017-18—sadly, that was around 300 older Australians that died each week in that year waiting for care;

  (c) there are around 14,000 older Australians who entered residential aged care prematurely because they couldn't get the care they were assessed and approved for in 2017-18—sadly, that was around 200 older Australians each week having no other choice but to enter residential aged care; and

  (d) the number of older Australians waiting for home care grew from 88,000 to 120,000 since 2017; and

(2) condemns the Government for its inadequate response to the Royal Commission's interim report and not providing the home care older Australians need.

When Meryl from Glenbrook put up a post on Facebook looking for suggestions on garden help for her ageing parents, she didn't expect the torrent of comments about delays for aged-care in-home help that it triggered. Meryl's parents in Blaxland have been assessed for an aged-care in-home package. They were approved for a low level of care but have found out that, even though they don't need a lot of support, they could be on a waiting list for three years before a package becomes available. So she's trying to source private help that will ensure her parents are able to maintain their independence with dignity. Of course, they realise there are many others with much, much greater needs, but, as Meryl said to me, 'You don't know about these things until it suddenly hits your family.'

Sadly, it's hitting lots of families. We don't have the December quarter figures yet for some reason, but the most recent ones showed that there are 120,000 older Australians waiting for their approved home care package, with many waiting more than two years for the care that they have been approved for. This has occurred on this government's watch. This isn't anybody else's legacy. It's not anyone else's fault. It's the direct result of this government's failure to have any plan for aged care to support people in a practical way and fund it appropriately.

The number of older Australians waiting for in-home care has grown from 88,000 to 120,000 since 2017. More than 16,000 older Australians have died waiting for their approved home care package that they were assessed for in 2017-18. I want you to think about those numbers; that's around 300 older Australians who died each week over that period waiting for care, having been told, 'Yes, you should have some help,' but then just left waiting.

There are also the 14,000 older Australians who had no choice but to enter residential aged care prematurely because they couldn't get, in their home, care that they were assessed and approved for in 2017-18. Sadly, that's around 200 older Australians each week having no other choice but to enter residential aged care. These are huge numbers, and it's an indictment on the funding and the packages that are available. They're damning numbers.

The Prime Minister claims that there has been:

… unprecedented aged care improvements to help ensure older Australians receive the care they want and deserve, where and when they need it.

Well, his words just do not match the facts on the ground. It feels more like the Prime Minister has sacrificed everything to the surplus dragon, pre-emptively claiming victory and squeezing the funds out of every vulnerable group he can, including older people who want to stay in their homes.

Alan, from Blaxland, has also been approved for low-level support—enough to make a difference for him and his wife, for whom he's the primary carer. But now he faces a long wait for the service to be delivered. To add insult to injury, the funding might eventually become available but the providers in our region don't have the capacity to deliver it. That's another issue—the workforce. This government has failed to invest in the people who will deliver services. Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury residents on the edge of Sydney have low access to services based locally. Those that are local tend to be snapped up fast, so people are all too often reliant on services outside the area, which have to agree to travel to us.

Now the government is pushing to change the way it pays the providers of in-home care. Instead of paying upfront and allowing them to draw down on that, it wants to pay them after the service has been delivered—a complete reverse of model. It doesn't sound like much of a switch but it makes a massive difference to cash flow, especially for the smaller services; it puts them at a real cash-flow risk. It's just the opposite of what our local economy needs as we're trying to recover from bushfires and with the threat of the coronavirus ahead of us, on top of what was already a pretty flat economic situation.

It also comes on the back of attempts to privatise ACAT assessments for in-home aged care. Those assessments are done by the states. From the feedback I receive, that is pretty much the only step of the process that goes smoothly. It's timely, it's respectful and it meets the needs of older people and their families. After hitting a brick wall of disapproval, I am relieved that the government has backed down from that plan. Fancy the royal commissioner feeling the need to refute the claim that he had somehow endorsed the move. Clearly, the government isn't really interested in the royal commission findings or what's best for elderly people. Its response is inadequate and it has put the budget first. (Time expired)

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for moving this motion. Young people may be our lifeblood but older people are the heart of the electorate of Indi. Twenty-one per cent of our population is aged 65 or older, higher than the Australian average of 16.5 per cent. With their children raising families of their own and a lifetime of experience behind them, older people, freed from the strictures of work, make an enormous contribution to our social, cultural and economic life. It's in no small part thanks to them that Indi holds the title of Australia's most neighbourly electorate. We look out for and after each other. I saw this during the recent bushfire crisis, with older people volunteering in their hundreds in relief centres and in the recovery effort.

It's no surprise that older people prefer to grow old where they belong. I hear time and time again from my constituents that they want to age in place in their own home, surrounded by things they love, working in their own garden, being with their pets and being close to their community and their family, with support when they need it.

Home care packages allow them to do just that, while relieving pressure on residential aged-care facilities and costing the taxpayer less. Given these benefits, it's a mystery to me why we continue to have such extraordinarily long wait times for home care packages. While the waitlist for level 4 packages has shrunk recently, the official wait time is still more than 12 months between approval and assignment of the package. The actual wait time is likely to be higher. According to Department of Health data in the aged-care royal commission interim report, the average wait time in 2017-18 was 22 months for a level 4 package. Forcing people to wait more than 12 months for the highest level of support is nothing short of a cruel dashing of hope. My constituents and their families are growing frustrated and despairing as they continue to wait.

Let me tell you about Phyllis Davidson. She's a 95-year-old woman from Wangaratta. Phyllis has lived for 16 years independently post the death of her husband in 2004, and she cared for him for years when he suffered from dementia. Until recently, she has cared for and supported 10 war widow legatees in her community as they aged and subsequently died in care. Phyllis was a matron at Morwell hospital for more than 13 years and she tells me that she doesn't recognise today's health system.

Phyllis, as I said, is independent and committed to ageing in place with the support of her family and the excellent aged and community care team in the Rural City of Wangaratta. In December 2018 she was assessed and approved for a level 4 package. Then she began the waiting game. In February 2020, after a 14-month wait, her family was told she was still on a nine-to-12-month waiting list. Phyllis is 95, don't forget. After intervention from my office, Phyllis was approved for a level 2 package as an interim measure while she waits for the appropriate package—and waits. She waits. Her family are increasingly frustrated at the opaque waiting list, the one-way communication with My Aged Care and problems accessing online updates.

Phyllis doesn't want to be a burden on the system, but in keeping her waiting the government may be giving her no choice. We know that longer wait times for healthcare packages have been associated with higher risk of mortality and entry into permanent residential care after two years. How much longer will she have to wait to get the support she is entitled to? The saddest thing about the waitlist is that the government controls the levers and has decided to cap packages significantly below demand. It could fund more packages tomorrow and reduce the waiting list to something resembling a humane compromise.

Another constituent who is caring for his 97-year-old mother while she awaits a level 3 package told me, 'The prioritising of balancing a budget over that the necessary care of our elderly in their own homes is a priority that I cannot and will not reconcile with an Australia that takes care of our people as a first priority.' The Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians says that the government is committed to improving the aged-care sector and points to its unprecedented investment in aged care. Well, this shouldn't be newsworthy! We've got more senior Australians than at any time in our history; the problem is that the investment is nowhere near enough.

I congratulated the government when it announced 10,000 more packages in response to the interim report's recommendations but the problems continue to persist and more must be done. I encourage the government to increase their rate of releasing new packages to clear the backlog, and if the government cannot solve the problem then we need to legislate maximum waiting times so that in the future older people can be certain of getting the right amount of care at the time that they need it and before they die waiting.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's my pleasure to speak on this motion, because for all Australians aged care is incredibly important. But in the beautiful Lyne electorate that I look after we have one of the oldest demographics in the country—it's even older than in the electorates of people who represent those on the Gold or Sunshine coasts, or in rural Victoria! The median age is actually 50, which is quite old, and 35.7 per cent, over one-third of the people, are over the age of 65. And we have three and a third per cent of our constituents over the age of 85. The Australian average is 2.2 per cent, so we have 50 per cent more than in most parts of the country.

Aged care has had an exceptional expansion in the Lyne electorate during the years I've had the honour of representing the people of the Lyne electorate. We've grown $90 million of annual funding up to $140 million of annual funding, and that is in the high-care residential space. But there's also been an explosion of funding for home care. We are trying to keep people ageing in their homes as best we can. It's much more favourable if we can keep people in their own environment, independence with assistance, independence with safety, independence with honour, and then they age better. The phenomenon is we are an ageing nation. With the wonders of our health system, most of us will live into our mid-80s, even me, for goodness sake, who's had all the challenges that my genetic pool has delivered me by the fickle finger of fate! You cannot change your genes; you can choose your friends, but you can't change your genes. And one of the best decisions you can make is to have parents and grandparents that live for a long time.

We live in the golden age compared to generations and civilisations past. We have modern health, we have incredible nutrition, we have too much food, which is one of our other many problems, but ageing with dignity is the aspiration of everyone. This government, former governments, even the opposition when they're in government: we're all united in what we want to achieve. But the facts of the matter are, with the ageing demographic, we are playing catch-up. To put things in perspective, people on the other side have called for more funding, while we have put bucketloads more funding into aged care. We have delivered record investment across the aged-care system. When I first entered this building in the 2012-13 financial year, it was resting at a $13.3 billion annual budget. Do you know what it's grown to now? I can tell you, Deputy Speaker. It's grown to $21.4 billion in 2019-20. By my arithmetic, that's more than seven and a bit billion dollars. That's an awfully big increase, but, because we have an ageing demographic, the demand is there and more people want to stay at home. That's why we've got this disconnect between the increase in funding in home care as opposed to the shorter time people are spending in residential care.

We also committed in this budget, as former speakers have mentioned, 44,000 new home care packages at a total of $2.7 billion. That's an enormous increase. At that same time, in 2012-13, before I entered the building, home care packages were numbered at 60,308. One would think we hadn't increased anything, but it will be 158,030 by the time this parliament ends in 2022-23, which is an increase of over 160 per cent. You'd have to be hiding under a rock to not know that there's a problem with getting these home care packages actually delivered. That's where the disconnect is. It's not because this government is not funding it; it's because we need to grow better efficiencies and get more people working in the home care space so these packages can be delivered and rolled out.

There were also comments on the other side about the aged-care royal commission. The reality is that we started the royal commission. It's delivering what we want, and that is a better aged-care system.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. Before I give the call to the member for Kingsford Smith, I apologise because I should have given you that call. The way I'll deal with it is, once you've given your speech, I'll then go to the member for Cunningham. I give the call to the member for Kingsford Smith.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More than 120,000 older Australians are waiting. They're waiting for something that should be their right, and that's their right to an adequate home care package after a lifetime of paying taxes, hard work and service to our nation. Now, in the latter years of their lives, they've been left in limbo by the Morrison government. Many are waiting more than two years for the care they have already been approved for. Our elderly citizens are amongst society's most vulnerable in our population, and many depend on others for care.

Many of our senior Australians who are needing support can and want to stay in their homes, yet more than 16,000 older Australians died waiting for their home-care packages that were assessed and approved in 2017-18. That's completely unacceptable. What will it take for the Prime Minister to finally wake up and fix this crisis? These really have been lost years for older Australians waiting for care. There are around 14,000 older Australians who entered residential care prematurely as a result of the lack of adequate home-care packages. That's because they couldn't get the care they were assessed for when it was approved in 2017-18.

Bad government translates to bad outcomes for our vulnerable older Australians, their families and carers. The number of older Australians waiting for home care has grown from 88,000 to 120,000 since 2017. There has been a lack of reform and investment in aged care, both in the home-care sector and in the residential aged-care sector, and we condemn the Morrison government for its inadequate response to the royal commission's interim report and for not providing home care for our older Australians in need. At the royal commission, we heard stories of degradation, suffering, abuse, neglect and systemic failure. We heard that up to half of older Australians in residential aged care are malnourished. The Morrison government's own interim report for the royal commission said it needed to do more on home care. It simply is not good enough that this government has said the recommendations from the interim report are now done and dusted, and it awaits the full report.

Talking with older Australians, their families and carers puts this crisis into perspective. They're genuinely feeling the impact of the government's inaction. I've spoken to a 92-year-old in my electorate who has been waiting for more than 12 months for an aged-care package that she has been assessed for. Ninety-two years old: surely someone in that situation should be prioritised and given access to an aged-care package urgently! We regularly hear from older Australians who are desperate, because they can't get through the My Aged Care service. New figures show that an average of 118 calls a day to the government's aged-care helpline went unanswered in the past year, and yet access to information is critical for older Australians or loved ones calling on their behalf. People shouldn't have to come to a member of parliament's office to be able to navigate the aged-care system.

The fact is that the government have cut aged-care funding, they've slashed it, and they did it while this Prime Minister was the then Treasurer. The consequences are now being felt. The Productivity Commission's figures around wait times for aged care in Australia show just how much more the Morrison government has to do to fix the aged-care system in this country. With wait times blowing out almost 300 per cent for residential aged care and with home-care wait lists continuing to grow, the government clearly hasn't done enough.

More than one million older Australians are receiving aged-care services, and they deserve better now. Particularly, those who have been assessed for home-care packages and are now waiting for them. We've seen over recent weeks how this government tried to privatise the assessment teams. This is one of the most important and fundamental roles of government, going into people's homes and assessing them for aged-care packages, so it says everything about this government that it tried to privatise that service. It was only after Labor shone a spotlight on this and pressured the government that they backed down last week.

Older Australians deserve our respect, but, under the Liberals, all they're getting are growing waiting times for care that they have been approved for. It says everything about a society in terms of how well you treat your vulnerable. Whether it goes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme or this government's treatment of older Australians, they have failed dismally when it comes to protecting the vulnerable in Australia.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for putting this issue on the debate list today. It's not new for me, in speaking in this parliament, to talk about the experiences of constituents in my area waiting for home-care packages. It is a persistent issue and a persistent problem in electorates right across this country. It is indeed an issue that was raised in the interim report of the royal commission, to which the government responded by releasing, I will acknowledge, an additional 10,000 home-care packages. The problem is: that's less than 10 per cent of those who are actually on the waiting list, and, when you consider the way our community is ageing, there are as many people coming onto the waiting list as the bandaid of a small percentage of new packages addresses. So the problem we've got now is that the waiting list is just not being tackled. The repercussions of that are not just numbers and figures. They are people who are making really difficult decisions in their homes and their families.

Many people have, very sadly, as we've heard from other speakers, died before they got the package that they were assessed as needing. We can only imagine what that meant for the last period of their life where they were struggling in their home, having been assessed as needing support and not being able to access it.

We know, in our constituency offices, what that means for the families, because it is the families who are picking up that work. I've talked to women who are in tears because they've had to give up their job to look after their elderly relative, to families torn by guilt about the fact that they can't do what their elderly relatives need, and, very often, to people going into residential care who would not have had to do that if they'd got the support they needed. Those are the true stories behind those figures. The government really needs a serious strategy to tackle those waiting lists.

I just want to take this opportunity, because I have spoken on a number of occasions about this, to report to the chamber the views of an amazing constituent of mine, an amazing advocate in the aged-care sector—indeed, the Senior Citizen of the Year in Wollongong in the Australia Day awards, Val Fell. Val recently turned 91. Happy birthday, Val! I'm not here to talk about Val's application for a home-care package. I'm here to read Val's words on the work she's doing to help the elderly in our community. This is what Val has to say:

Although Australians are living longer, many of them begin 'the Waiting Game' as soon as they are diagnosed with an illness, such as heart complaint, stroke, physical disability mental health problem or dementia.

In the dementia field, because of the lack of face-to-face discussions with an advisor, people with dementia and their carers 'wait' to access services because they are often unaware of their existence. (there is A Dementia Advisory Service but the staff numbers cannot cover the number of people involved ie (one adviser to over 6000 people with a diagnosis in one area).

Arranging an ACAT under the current system is usually without problems and carers are confident with the result because they know that the assessors are part of a trained, multi-disciplinary team.

And Val was making that point because of our concerns about the privatisation of that service, so I'm very pleased the government has backflipped on that today. Val continues:

If you are computer literate (not all aged people are in that category) accessing 'Finding a Provider' for HOME HELP under CHSP on the MY AGED CARE website can be time-consuming and frustrating.

Many people are initially looking for domestic assistance, personal care, gardening and transport although there are other services listed. This means going through the process 4 times (difficult if you are caring for someone 24/7 who is constantly shadowing you.

The result of trawling through the system at the moment in many areas is—

1. Domestic Assistance - currently not available but you may go on a waiting list …

2. Personal Care offered by 1 organisation … Who say 'currently not available'.

3. Gardening—only available from 2 organisations on a 'one-off' … basis …

4, Transport depends on your postcode.

Val has done a lot of work advocating tirelessly for people who ring her seeking assistance. She's an amazing 91-year-old. But, on her behalf, as an advocate in my community who lives this day in and day out, I call on the government to take more immediate action to address this matter.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on the motion moved by the member for Macquarie, which notes the Morrison government's appalling response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. The royal commission handed down its interim report on 31 October 2019. The report was titled, quite simply, Neglect. A simple word at the top of a massive iceberg. The commissioner made three recommendations in that report requiring urgent action. One of the urgent recommendations was to ensure older Australians are getting the care at home when they need it most. The government's response to that recommendation was to allocate 10,000 home care packages and only 5,500 for the first year. This limp-lettuce response was despite there being more than 100,000 older Australians waiting for their already approved home care packages. Merely 5,500 in the first year is worse than woeful. It's actually a disgrace. Sadly, almost 30,000 older Australians died over the past two years while waiting for their approved home care packages and 25,000 older Australians entered residential aged care prematurely over the past two years because they could not access their approved home care packages.

The Productivity Commission's report on government services released in January this year revealed that older Australians are waiting almost three years for their approved high-level home care packages. The Liberals have been asleep at the wheel for six years and now they're well into their seventh year. There have been four different aged care ministers in that time and billions of dollars has been ripped out of the system, while Australia's aged care has lurched from one deep crisis to another. The current Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians let slip in the Senate a couple of weeks ago that he had not actually read the royal commission's interim report. He admitted he hadn't seen a statistic that appeared on page 7 of the interim report's foreword—that's the responsible minister.

Older Australians desperate for care are being forced to abandon calls for help to the My Aged Care portal. This supposed golden gateway has turned out to be more like a black hole. Over the last three years, more than 110,000 calls for help went unanswered by the My Aged Care call centre. This is a massive failure on the part of the Morrison government. The My Aged Care portal is the key entry point for older Australians waiting to access aged care at home or in permanent care. It is totally unacceptable that older Australians can't use My Aged Care. The Morrison government is asleep at the wheel and older Australians are again paying the price.

The only plan this hapless government actually had for aged care was to privatise the assessment of aged care services, an ill-conceived idea right from the beginning that I would suggest involved winding down services so they could sell it off and actually stop the flow of people going into aged care and the hit on the budget. In January, the aged care royal commissioners issued an extraordinary public correction in response to the false assertion of the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians that the commission supported the plan to privatise aged care assessments. What a slap down. Last week, one of the government's own MPs, in a speech in parliament, rubbished their plan to privatise aged care assessments. After state and territory governments also panned the plan, the government finally walked away from their ill-thought-out privatisation plan.

The Morrison government needs to reassure older Australians that the important work of assessment in aged care will continue to be done by experienced and well-qualified assessors, in conjunction with the states and territories. This is what older Australians deserve. The Morrison government is just not committed to looking after vulnerable older Australians. Forget the spin. Look at what they have actually done, look at their actions and look at their funding.

In June 2017, the Australian Law Reform Commission released a landmark report into elder abuse. None of the 14 recommendations from that report that related to aged care have been fully implemented. This is another shocking failure. Figures released last year showed that there were 5,233 assaults in residential aged care in just one year. That was an 80 per cent increase over the last two years, on the coalition's watch. Recommendations such as introducing a register of aged care staff have been left sitting on the minister's shelf collecting dust. So, an aged care worker could be dismissed at one nursing home and then go down the street and mistreat another older Australian, but the employer wouldn't know. Acting on the ALRC recommendations would make vulnerable Australians in aged care safer.

The Morrison government must do its day job. It must stop the scourge of elder abuse. Older Australians and their families cannot afford the wait any longer. How can we trust the Morrison government to respond to the royal commission into aged care when they still haven't implemented important recommendations from an ALRC report from almost three years ago?

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.