Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Aged Care. My electorate is concerned by the Aged Care Taskforce report and your previous comments that 'the baby boomers are coming'. Minister, those in receipt of aged-care services already contribute to their care. Why is it fair for older Australians to pay more when we don't means test other supports such as the NDIS? Isn't this just age discrimination?

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mayo for her question and for her longstanding and diligent interest in policy for aged care and improving that standard across this country. As she probably observed keenly when we released it last week, the release of the Aged Care Taskforce report is an important next step, but it is a step in our journey on aged-care reform in this country. The Aged Care Taskforce, which we set up mid last year, worked for six months and did a huge amount of consultation, including with people from her electorate. There were 11 roundtables held by taskforce members themselves and an additional 12 roundtables that were held by both OPAN, the Older Persons Advocacy Network, and COTA, the Council on the Ageing, on the terms of reference of the taskforce, with their members specifically, so that the people they had on the taskforce could feed that back in for discussion. Additionally, there were 180 submissions made. There were numerous webinars. We have six months worth of consultation where those questions and contributions were made and were considered by the taskforce. You would have seen last Tuesday the 23 recommendations that the taskforce made to government.

The report of the taskforce does not represent the government's response. The government are now considering our response to those 23 recommendations. What we have done so far across the couple of months that we have had that report is advance our work to the point that last week we could give older Australians some certainty about the pathway we would take forward. What we were able to say was that we would rule out any new levy across Australians, any new tax on Australians and any changes to the arrangements for the family home, which I hope gives some of the constituents that you're speaking with about this some confidence and certainty about what this pathway looks moving forward.

What we will do to move forward is continue to work through this within the processes that we have in government. In order to do that, we have commenced meeting with the opposition to see whether there is a pathway for us to do this in a bipartisan manner. You will have seen in the opposition leader's budget reply in October last year that this is something that parties and crossbenchers from all parts of this parliament consider to be something that should be above politics. Better aged care in this country should be above politics.

The early responses that I saw from people last week is that there may be pathway forward for us to do this in a bipartisan manner. I think your constituents would find that to be both reassuring and something they would expect us to be able to do in this parliament. We have offered some briefings so far to members of different parties and crossbenchers in this place. We will continue to do that as we move this work forward, and I will update the House on progress as soon as I'm able to do so.