Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have here the Aged Care Bill 2024. It is quite a tome. But in this volume you can't get the feeling and the emotion and the hurt and the angst and the despair and the anxiety of regional people, for whom aged care is so important. I understand it is important for everybody, but it is particularly so in regional communities, where, lately, all too many older Australians who've given so much for this country have had to be shipped out to far-flung towns to get care in their twilight years, and this is simply not good enough. This document won't expound just how bad that is for the families of those loved ones who are forced into not being able to get ageing in place.

I spoke this morning to Ross Tout. He was the chairman of Uralba aged care in Gundagai for 14 years. He's now the vice-chairman of that organisation. It is fully booked. Its 19 beds are all occupied by wonderful Gundagai people. Gundagai is a very hilly town, and Uralba aged care is right next door to the hospital. The MPS needed to be right next door to the aged-care centre in order to receive federal funding when it was opened in 2011. It's almost like an episode of Yes, Minister. I recall 'The Compassionate Society', which is episode 1 of season 2, where you had Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby talking about the best-performing hospital in Britain. The nurse who was talking to them said: 'Minister, it's one of the best run hospitals in the country. It's up for a Florence Nightingale award!' Jim Hacker says, 'Is it functioning now?' Yes, it was functioning, but it didn't have any patients. It's almost laughable. It was doing so well because it had no patients, so it was meeting all the criteria that a good hospital should for the mere fact that there weren't any patients in it.

I mention that because, at Uralba, they have a lift which joins, on this hillside location, the aged-care centre and the MPS. It has only been used, according to Ross Tout, about 10 times. Do you know why that is so? It's because there's a differentiation between the state and the federal departments that run these facilities. Rather than turn the lift on, unlock the lift and put in the patients in the aged-care centre who need to go to the MPS or to the hospital, they call an ambulance. Rest assured, there are just 50 metres separating these two facilities. But wait for it! The ambulance station is not that far away either. You could measure it in metres as well. They call the ambulance to pick up elderly patients in one facility and take them next door, because the state and federal government departments cannot agree about funding. This is right up there with Yes, Minister. This happened to Ross Tout's father, Ian, who is an 89-year-old fellow and a wonderful Australian. He gave so much to this country. And you have a situation such as that, which is just ridiculous. You've got these Tor Street facilities right next door to one another. And then you have the ambos, as good as they are. And they don't mind, because they're locals. They love their community. They do everything they can for their communities, and they have to drive up, get the patients and take them right next door.

The aged-care situation in regional Australia is dire, because you had a situation with a royal commission. No-one denies that royal commissions should not be very much adhered to in the main by governments which bring them on. But you have recommendations and then ministers not frightened to even so much as challenge a recommendation. I mention here the situation with the 24/7 nurses. You have regional communities right across my electorate and the member for Parkes's electorate, which takes up half of New South Wales—I have no doubt the member for Forrest has them too in Western Australia—with facilities that can't find registered nurses to fulfil the requirements that the aged-care recommendations said were necessary. You've got situations there like the one we had in Coolamon at Allawah Lodge, where they had to close an entire wing. In one of the three wings of that facility, they couldn't find enough nurses or staff, so they closed an entire wing of the Allawah Lodge. Fortunately, they've been able, using immigration visas, to fill those vacancies. Well done to Tony Donoghue, the general manager of the local council, which owns and operates Allawah Lodge, for being able to do that. Well done to the community for going along with it. That is fantastic.

But you also get the situation with Weddin Shire at Grenfell. They have difficulty—and I was very pleased that Weddin health council members, Chair Peter M   offitt OAM; Peter Spedding; the then mayor, Craig Bembrick; and the office of Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health, Emma McBride, were able to meet, and I was very pleased that they were able to put their situation forward: the capital investment they need, but also local aged-care concerns.

It wasn't that long ago that the aged-care centre at Harden closed. Harden, one of the little twin towns of Harden Murrumburrah, had acquired a community-paid-for, fully-subscribed facility from Galong, years ago, and moved it into the twin towns, and then, for a number of reasons—it was particularly brought about by the then operators—it just closed overnight, virtually. That led to much heartache and despair in the community.

It's important to note that, in aged care, the regions are doing it tough, particularly in trying to find the staff and trying to find the registered nurses. And why is it fair, why is it right—of course, it's not—that people who live in a community all their lives, and reach what should be their golden years, then, all of a sudden, because of a lack of beds brought about by provisions in a royal commission, have to be shuffled out of town and into communities that they are not familiar with, far away from the communities they've lived in and loved all their lives? So then, all of a sudden, they don't see their people, their families, and particularly, in the case of couples who are married for decades, they are separated for the first time in many, many years, because of funding arrangements, because of those provisions, because of lack of staffing. It's just not right. It's almost inhumane—especially if one of the couple might have early dementia, and they love seeing their partner and then, all of a sudden, they're not able to do that if their partner does not have a driver's licence. These are very real situations that I hear about, and that, no doubt, the member for Parkes hears about just about every day of the week. It's simply not good enough.

Recently, we had the Salvation Army divesting itself of its residential aged-care services in Parkes. Now, Parkes is a big community of 12,000 people. The Rosedurnate aged-care centre and retirement village in Parkes was just closed. Fortunately, the Moyne aged-care centre in Canowindra, just outside, in the electorate of Calare, was acquired by the Roshana aged-care group. But the situation of Parkes is not resolved. It is not good enough. As for an organisation like the Salvos—many regional people have given mightily to that organisation, and it is a wonderful charity, but, on this occasion, they have failed the community of Parkes. They've failed the people who they should be looking after.

Forty-five residents will be displaced, with no clear sight as to which facility they will be rehomed in. This does require urgent intervention. It's simply not good enough. The council is working hard with local families to rectify the situation, but it's very worrying, as are some of the provisions of the aged-care situation at the moment.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this Aged Care Bill tonight. I understand we have an ageing population in this country. I speak as someone who is a baby boomer, I've got to admit—one of the younger baby boomers, but a baby boomer. We are the largest cohort of citizens in Australia, and we, the baby boomers, are rapidly heading to being in higher need. So there's a need for this parliament to work through to improve legislation around aged care and how it's managed. It is incredibly important.

I would like to give credit to the government and Minister Wells and the coalition leadership team that agreed to work through this process and make some changes, particularly around regional funding. This issue is way above party politics. This is way above some of the issues that get debated in this place. There is a Senate inquiry happening, and, if it happens to identify issues that need to be fine-tuned or corrected, I'm certainly hopeful that the process is there to do that.

Fundamentally, with this large wave of Australian post-war babies that are coming through the system, there will be an enormous burden and pressure on this country—on the cost of funding that and on the workforce. By the time the baby boomers will need peak care, we're going to go from three out of five Australians in the workforce back to two. So not only are we going to have a smaller income coming to the government through income tax; we're also going to have a workforce issue.

It's the workforce issue at the moment that is creating some problems in aged care in my electorate, but, before I go on to that, I might just touch on something else. I was regional health minister during the pandemic, and I believe one of the absolute scandals was the way the Australian media portrayed aged care during that time. They made elderly people fearful, so much so that people are only gaining back the confidence to go into that higher level of care. Quite frankly, we've seen people languishing at home, living in less-than-optimum circumstances because of this fear of going into aged care.

Clearly, there were deaths in aged care, as in the rest of society, but, to be quite frank, aged care now has moved somewhat in the last 30 years. Originally, a lot of facilities were built as hostel-type accommodation for reasonably active retirees to live in a communal space. Now, with more focus on home delivered aged care, aged care has transformed into basically high-level care and end-of-life care. So the people that are going into these facilities now are going in for a lesser period of time, but they're also going into a space where they need a higher level of care. That people in aged care are actually dying at a higher rate than the rest of Australia is the bleeding obvious, quite frankly, but the scare campaign that went into that was very, very damaging to the industry.

Apart from scaring the elderly people, the degeneration to the staff that work in there—these are the salt of the earth, people that care for our elderly people. Years ago, it would have been the responsibility of the family, but, now, with people working in the workplace, we have put the care of our elderly into someone else's hands. Those people are gems. They are dealing with people who are suffering from dementia, that are disorientated, that have become aggressive, that need high-level care. They do it, and in every town I visit I see these wonderful people. And, quite frankly, they were demoralised after the pandemic by the way they were treated by the media and the way aged care was portrayed. It has been difficult to get people to look at going back into that occupation. I acknowledge the government is paying more money for that. But, aside from the money, we need to make sure these people are emotionally rewarded and recognised for the work they do.

With the best of intentions, I suspect—and we see this a lot—people who live in larger centres and the city don't understand regional aged care. The member for Riverina mentioned this. The need for registered nurses 24/7—while it's a lofty ambition, I'm sure—has created an enormous issue for aged-care providers in regional Australia. I'll give you an example. Southern Cross Care is the major provider in Broken Hill. I think they care for about 270 people when they're at capacity. They struggle because they're in competition with the Far West Local Health District, the Royal Flying Doctor Service and local medical practices for this very small cohort of people that have skills in that nursing care. So, in an attempt to meet the legislative requirements so they're not in trouble from the department for being noncompliant, they're bringing in agency nurses from the cities, who are paid at a much higher rate, which is blowing out the budget for these places.

Worse still, it's impacting the morale of the workforce. Picture a local registered nurse with 30 years experience working side by side with a new graduate, someone without that experience. They could be a good person, but they don't have any experience. They're not committed to the community; they've just flown up from Melbourne, Adelaide or somewhere to work for two weeks. For them to be earning more money than the local person, while they're working side by side, doing the same job, is a circumstance that's got to be fixed.

We've seen it with doctors. In an attempt to fix something in the short term—by throwing money at people to go and live and work in these remote places—we've actually created a bigger problem. We've got doctors now who choose being a locum as a career, rather than establishing themselves in a community. Now we're starting to see that with the nurses coming into aged care.

That got Southern Cross Care into a degree of financial problems, and I do want to recognise Minister Wells for her personal attention to this and the relief package that we got for Southern Cross Care. Broken Hill is a long way from other communities, and Far West Local Health now, in an attempt to free up their critical care beds, are moving people out, and, with Southern Cross not having the ability to take them, we are seeing people sent to Balranald, which is over 400 kilometres away. And so, as the member for Riverina spoke about, couples who have maybe been together for 60 or 65 years spend their final years apart. I've had family members who have had dementia, and part of the care is the ability for a family member to come in—because the nursing staff don't have that much time—to help feed them lunch, to stand there and hold their hand just for them to have company. There's all of that. So this is a tragedy.

I've been working with the Lake Cargelligo All Care group now for 15 years, I reckon, and the Murrumbidgee Local Health District are in the final stages of the plans for expanding the Lake Cargelligo MPS. I believe that those plans are now on the desk of the New South Wales health minister. I'm hoping that we can see that, because I've spoken to a couple of gentlemen in Lake Cargelligo whose wives have passed away—one was in West Wyalong and one was in Condobolin, both of them 110 kilometres away from where they lived. These gentlemen were in their mid-80s, and, at best, they could see their wives one day a week.

I'm pleased that Senator Ruston was able to negotiate more money for regional Australia. The irony of all of this is that those towns with the smaller facilities have no other option, but the facilities are more expensive to run, so this is a need.

The other thing is that I think we have to have a conversation with the Australian people to make them understand that they're going to have to plan for their old age. Whether they like it or not, they can't just pretend that someone's going to be there. They've got to have a plan because, if they don't have a plan for themselves, they'll end up in someone else's plan and it mightn't be what suits them. I met with the Probus Club in Broken Hill earlier this year, and they were quite upset about the lack of aged-care beds in the town. Basically they were saying, 'We've paid taxes all our lives; the government should look after us in our old age.' Well, the reality is that that's going to change and you are going to have to contribute. If you have an asset you're going to have to contribute in a fair way. This bill has recognised that. It's not an extreme request for more money, but people, particularly younger generations, are going to have to plan. As everyone ages, they are going to have to have a plan so that they know what will happen when they get to a certain point. I've dealt with some tragic cases over the last 17 years when elderly people have not thought about this. Their partner has passed away, or their partner has had a stroke or a dementia diagnosis and all of a sudden they're caring for someone—when they just do not have the capacity to do that and they are without somewhere to go. So you need to know what your options are under various scenarios as you age.

Sometimes, as members of parliament, we don't do very well at this conversation. We tend to say to people, 'Look, we'll go to the minister,' and we say we'll do this and do that. But we need to have a conversation with the Australian people so they can understand this legislation in its final form. We have not seen that yet, but the intent of this legislation is to put a framework in place for the next stage of aged care in this country, and everyone in this country needs to be prepared for that. As someone who will be leaving this place after 17 years, when I'll be at the official age of retirement, I know you need to have plans based on two scenarios—you're going to live to be a hundred or you're going to die tomorrow—and you need those plans in place. That is incredibly important.

I might finish, in the last minute or so, by talking about the wonderful facilities in my electorate. I spoke about Broken Hill just as an example, but that could be replicated right across my electorate. We've got Cooee Lodge in Gilgandra. We've got Cooinda in Coonabarabran. Both are fantastic facilities. In my home town there's Naroo. I can proudly say that my parents were instrumental in that. My father was the chairman of the committee—he was the local mayor—that got Naroo built in the first place. I go to visit those people, and the people I admired as a young person in Warialda, the community leaders of 40 years ago, are now getting cared for by people they know. When you're in aged care in a place like Warialda, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Coonamble—any of those towns—you're being cared for by someone who has a connection to you. You are not just an old person in a bed; you are known, respected and loved. We can't let that go. We've got to make sure we maintain those facilities.

We don't talk about this enough. We talk about health care, about education, about child care, but the ability to die in your own town, surrounded by your family and friends, is a basic human need. We can't shuffle people around like a commodity. Hopefully—I've got great faith in this legislation—those things will be addressed. I give support to the concept. I'll make my judgement when I see the final bill, but I think this is a step in the right direction.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Bill 2024. I'll go into the bill itself, but could I first say that the retiring member for Parkes has been one of the most honourable people who has ever served in this place. He has probably been one of the most connected to his vast community among those who have ever served in this place. If I can conduct myself in this place with the decency of the member for Parkes I'll be a very proud person. I wish him well.

Aged care, as the member for Parkes did say, is so important. Any change to aged-care policy has real consequences, some anticipated and some unintended.

The last tranche of changes, while in line with recommendations of the royal commission, did cause some issues in my electorate. Sadly, a community based nursing home in a place called Nathalia had to close. That was called Barwo, and it closed because it could neither afford the changes that needed to be implemented nor recruit the highly qualified staff required. That result is not a good outcome for the community or the elderly residents of the town who want to live out their days there.

I just want to explain a little bit about this place called Nathalia. It's primarily a dairying town, but there's some cropping around there too. These people live their lives on the land. They work incredibly hard—harder than a lot of Australians, I'd say—getting up at the crack of dawn to milk cows, as the member for Forrest has done through her career. What happens is that one of the couple probably, if I could say, deteriorates faster than the other. The member for Parkes explained this: someone has to go into care first. When you've got a small community place in a small town, like Nathalia, and one of the couple needs to stay out on the farm—or, indeed, in the house that they've bought in town—it means they can be close to each other until the end. That's so important, not only for the couple but also for the children who have taken over the farm and will continue to live in the region. Now, that might not be a big deal in suburban Melbourne, where, if you need to move into a new place, it's still only 10 or 15 minutes down the road. Sometimes, some of these people from Barwo have had to go an hour away. What does that mean to a couple where someone's had to move an hour away? Sometimes the people who are left at home can't drive. The kids are a long way away from those people. It's an example.

I am going to give some credit to the government on elements of what's been agreed here, but I think it's another element of the current government not quite understanding that regional Australia works differently to the metropolitan areas. It needs some exemptions, and it needs to be treated a little bit differently in the legislation. This is just one example of that. If I could bring anything to this place, it's to try to explain that things are a bit different out in regional Australia, as the member for Forrest does, and we've got to have legislation that acknowledges and understands that.

High-quality aged care is the right of every Australian, and the opposition provided a clear offer to work with the government on sensible aged-care policies because we need a system that's strong and sustainable to support future generations. It is important that we recognise that aged care is not merely a sector; it is a reflection of who we are as a society. In response to the royal commission, the former coalition government provided more than $18 billion in funding to support the immediate needs of the sector, and through good-faith negotiations our aim has been to ensure that any reforms provide dignity and clarity for older Australians. We have held the government to account, to finally introduce their package of reform that brings all Australians into this important conversation.

The challenges of aged care are clear and undeniable. They don't just exist in this country but all around the world. More than half of the aged-care homes across Australia are operating at a loss. We have an ageing population, and their future care is a source of stress for elderly Australians and their children and grandchildren. There's a desire for people to age at home, and the way aged care is delivered and supported needs to change. We all acknowledge that.

The Aged Care Bill 2024 represents a significant package of reforms, which is why we have sought immediate referral to the Community Affairs and Legislation Committee for inquiry. Aged care is so important, and the changes to it impact so many. We need to really engage and have a proper conversation. I'd like to acknowledge that this is one of those times when I think the coalition and the government have worked pretty well together. I'm always keen to try and explain that it's not all about us yelling at each other in question time, but there are times when all people of good faith try to negotiate an outcome that's right. It might not be perfect for everyone—and I've indicated some of the concerns I still have—but in good-faith negotiations, the coalition has achieved significant changes to the government's proposed legislation that will protect the interests of older Australians. The coalition fought for the inclusion of grandfathering arrangements to ensure that every Australian who has already commenced their journey of ageing within the Commonwealth system will not be impacted by these changes. That means that all older Australians currently in the system, including those on a home-care package waiting list, will not pay one cent more for their aged-care journey.

As a fairer deal for hardworking Australians, the coalition fought for the inclusion of a much lower taper rate to ensure equitable contributions for Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement and an assurance that the federal government, not the consumer, will remain the majority funder of aged care, although the consumer will contribute.

The coalition fought for the maintenance of a lifetime cap on care contributions across both residential care and home care to provide certainty to families who may have loved ones in care for many years, as well as the inclusion of a time limited cap for residential aged care to ensure that older Australians and their families will only be required to contribute to care costs for four years. The government's original proposal saw no cap on home care and a $184,000 cap on residential aged care only. We've gained the concession that no older Australian will pay more than $130,000 for non-clinical care in home care and residential care combined.

The really important one that the retiring member for Forrest and the equally distinguished retiring member for Grey, who've both been wonderful members of this place, have fought for because they understand regional and rural Australia is the coalition's securing of $300 million dollars in additional capital funding through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program for regional, rural and remote aged-care providers to upgrade their facilities, as well as additional care funding, particularly for regional, rural and remote aged-care homes. I've explained how important it is to keep some of these places in smaller communities open and taking people. Targeted support for rural, regional and remote aged-care homes was not included in the initial proposal. It's there now.

There is the removal of criminal penalties. We strongly pushed for the removal of the criminal penalties from the bill following serious concerns that their inclusion would force the exit of highly capable staff from the sector in fear of being criminally punished to a level not seen in other industries. The Albanese government wanted aged-care workers, and even volunteers, to be criminally liable, and we thought that was inappropriate.

We don't need unionism in every aged-care home. In fact, we can't have it when we're trying to understand the needs of regional and rural Australia. Labor wanted a workers representative to be able to come into every single aged-care home and demand an explanation on any aspect of its operations. Now, we support aged-care providers working consultatively with their staff, but we don't want unions to march into aged-care homes and tell them how to do their jobs, and we successfully fought to remove that provision.

This bill aims to ensure that Commonwealth aged-care services remain accessible to those who require them today and into the future, and it aims to promote dignity, independence and a meaningful life for older Australians, which the coalition remains committed to. We want to consult with older Australians and the sector. As a regional member—I've explained this previously—I understand that we do face unique challenges. The fact that they will get significantly increased funding for people in their care is really important. I'm really proud that we were able to fight for that, and I want to give some credit to Minister Wells for listening. The best policy in this place happens when we all collaborate and say, 'This is what I'm hearing from my people. This is what you're hearing from your people. This is what is doable. This is what we can't do.' Even though I still have some concerns, there's a bit of that in this, and I think that Australians will be pleased with the way we've done that.

Aged care is very personal. We've all been there, or we're all going to be there, in that situation with a loved one. In my case, it was my maternal grandmother, Molly Dunham. She'd had a fall. We put her in the hospital and we knew she wasn't going to go back home. In the town of Shepparton, in which she'd lived her whole life, she was able to go into a facility that looked after her and treated her with dignity. The last time I ever saw her alive was when I went into that place and saw the staff making sure she was okay. She had a cup of tea and was enjoying her time.

If I can, I will just share that, during the campaign—this is how small some of our communities are—I went doorknocking around an area of Shepparton and I banged on a door with my leaflet and I said, 'Hello. I'm Sam Birrell. I'm your Nationals candidate for Nicholls,' and she said, 'I remember you. You're Molly's grandson. I worked at Mercy care and I looked after Molly.' That was a pretty emotional moment for both of us because I'd been in there all the time visiting Nanna, and this person, who I was now asking for her vote, had looked after her in her final months.

Shepparton Villages is another aged-care provider in my electorate, and that had a new facility built recently. It probably opened about five or six years ago. It was opened by a member of this place, the then Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt. Former minister Wyatt came in and gave a beautiful speech to the residents of Shepparton Villages saying: 'You deserve this place because your efforts, your risk, your work, the investment of your capital built Shepparton. You deserve the most relaxing, enjoyable—

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dignified.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and dignified'—thank you, Member for Forrest, 'end to your life because you build this place.' We can say that about Australia. They built Australia, that generation. They built in Australia. They built my community. They built Shepparton. They built farms—dairy farms. They built places like SPC. And there were some federal government contributions. For them to have the minister, a Western Australian, come in—and I'll never forget what he said—and say, 'You deserve this because you build this town, and now is the time for you to sit back in comfort and look around at the society you've built.' It was very moving.

While I've a minute or so left, I do want to go through how personal it is. I hope everyone indulges me in sharing these personal anecdotes, but aged care is so personal for us. I knew earlier this year that my father had to go into aged care at some point and I took him to a place called Moyola Lodge in Tatura. We were hoping to get him in; Dad hadn't been that organised. Moyola is in a small town called Tatura, and my dad moved to Tatura in 1971 as a young lawyer. I wanted to show Dad around Moyola and make sure that he was not scared by what he was seeing and that he would be welcomed. Polly Devine, the CEO of Moyola, said to my dad: 'Brian, you were a great footballer for Tatura. I've heard legendary stories about what you did, the law firm you created in this town and the number of people you've helped.' And he knew that he was going to be looked after and would be okay there. Sadly, he died the next week and never got to see that.

Aged care and what we do in this place are really important for our families, and I'm really pleased with the bill we've been able to negotiate and come to an agreement on.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Nicholls that very powerful contribution.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also recognise what the member for Nicholls just put on the line there to share with Australia, and I thank him for it.

Reforming the aged-care sector is necessary; it's a fair call, and it is time for reform, with the Aged Care Bill 2024. We have co-operated with the government on the royal commission recommendations, at least part of the response, and we've reached broad agreement with the government on the financial arrangements, which will be a penalty on some Australians, and it took some work to achieve some amendments, which we believe are right and proper. The fact the bill is now in this form I suggest means the government agrees with us. That's a good thing. The member for Nicholls just detailed the fact that we negotiated the grandfathering clause. I think this is basic good governance at any level, whether reforming tax systems or assistance programs. Anyone who has invested in an existing government policy should not be disadvantaged retrospectively by a change of government policy. I think, pretty much with everything governments do, it should be grandfathered and always looking to the future. That is the right and proper thing to do.

Better taper rates that are a little more generous—in fact, I think we halved the taper rate that the government first suggested for obvious reasons. And the fixed timeline—I think the fixed lifetime cap is an assurance for people. I'm working on getting old, Mr Deputy Speaker! I intend to be working on it for some time yet! It is my view that, as people get older, they're a little more careful with the money they have managed to accumulate through their life. They think, 'This is mine,' and, in many cases, they want to pass it onto their children. I'm not sure that they should be of that opinion. I think maybe that's causing as many problems as it helps. But you can understand that, regarding that fixed lifetime cap.

Of course, one that is extremely important to me and that maybe we haven't pushed hard enough is the $300 million spend for infrastructure. It is that area that I want to spend the bulk of my speech talking about—that is, the disadvantage of rural and regional electorates in trying to provide aged care, what amount we will sit on and how much tougher it is to manage there than elsewhere. Aged care in the country is extra expensive—higher costs, food supplies, transport—particularly for staff. That seems a little illogical, but the problem is, because we can't fill our staffing rosters, aged-care facilities frequently have to resort to agency staff, which is around two to three times the cost of regular staff. They just have no choice. They've got to keep their doors open.

Legislation was passed in this place I think last year—it may have been earlier this year—by the government to enforce every aged-care facility to have a 24/7 registered nurse on call. For smaller facilities, it's just a bar that is too high and it's more expensive staffing. That has led them to using agency staff as well or breaking the regulations and running the risk of being curtailed. In my electorate, I've already lost one nursing home, one that my aunty lived in, incidentally, for some years. It was a very nice place down at Stansbury on Yorke Peninsula called Elanora. Four years ago it closed. It was a community run organisation, but they hit hard times, and so it was taken over by Eldercare, who did their best, but, in the end, they too were beaten by the staffing issues.

I could take you there, Mr Deputy Speaker, to Stansbury. It's like heaven on a stick. It's a beautiful Yorke Peninsula little seaside coastal town. You'd think, 'Why wouldn't people want to go there and work?' But it's around about 2½ or three hours from Adelaide, and they don't want to go there to work. They don't want to go there and live. People want to come there for holidays. They fill up the shacks all the time—not a problem. But we just can't get the staff there. I've got another one on Yorke Peninsula that is seriously under pressure at the moment, at a time when actually the demand for aged care is increasing. It's not as if we haven't had the warning. It was in 2002 that Peter Costello released the first Intergenerational report and identified exactly this issue—that the ageing of Australia was going to present an ongoing and increasing challenge for younger Australians as they were asked to fund the retired people of this nation—and asked how we would deal with that.

So one of the problems we have in this ageing Australia is people like me. I think I'm a baby boomer. I'm never too sure about where those margins fit in, but I'll settle for that. We all want better. We want better facilities than our parents aged in and our grandparents aged in. We want better rooms. We want independent baths and showering facilities, and for good reason. We've just been through a pandemic, and you can justify that on medical and health grounds alone. So we want better. But better costs more. Better means knocking down old facilities that actually can do the job, but nobody wants to use them anymore.

I'm very grateful for this: in Whyalla, we have a community-run organisation that really hit hard times and got to the point of having to close their doors. Helping Hand, which is a Catholic, Uniting Church associated aged-care facility stepped in and took over management, and it was running until the last election. I managed to secure a commitment from the government at the time of a $10 million grant to help them rebuild and refurbish, to get rid of the shared bathrooms and to build some extra facilities. We did not win the election, and the Labor party did not make the same commitment. But I'm very grateful that they did come to the party. Eventually, prices went up, as they have everywhere, but $17.2 million has come from the current federal government to Helping Hand in Whyalla, and I'm very grateful for that investment. I think we can see the pathway forward there now, with management from a bigger organisation having some advantages and providing some economic gains.

But we need investment similar to that and in fact even more in Port Augusta at the moment. We've got facilities that are in the 1970s style, and they need to be upgraded. There's demand there. We have a private operator there. To give you some idea, the private operator came into possession of facilities that were owned by the council and sold to the private operator for $1. That will give you some indication of how much money it was not making—how much money it was losing. We've had someone be prepared to stick their hand up and take the risk. I understand that they are breaking even, but there is no way in the world we can find the kind of investment dollar they need to refurbish, rebuild and expand. The $300 million is very important. I make the point that there are 150 electorates around Australia, so $300 million won't go all that far. That's the answer.

This is a reform. It will help fund the health system. It will ask people who have more to contribute more. I'm not against that. I think the fact that we've come together means it will be accepted a little more than if it were a politically difficult decision. In government, in nine years, things get forgotten quickly, I might say. In government, in nine years, we tripled the number of home-care packages. We went from somewhere around 60,000 to over 200,000. We're still being criticised—quite rightly, I guess, because there weren't enough, and there are still not enough. But it's worth remembering that, in nine years, we tripled the number of home-care packages. We invested a further $18 billion a year into aged care.

It raises serious issues for Australia, with ever-increasing demand on government services everywhere. Our stalled and indeed falling per capita productivity is a huge concern. If we want more and better health care, aged care, child care, education and NDIS and we don't want to pay more taxes—and clearly a majority of Australians don't want to—some way or another, we've got to increase productivity. We cannot have a backwards slip in productivity. The only way Australia will be able to afford the future it wants is if we are more productive. That means we have to take the bull by the horns here in this place and talk about how we get more for the same, if you like. How do we get the work of the nation to make sure we have a better outcome for our efforts? If you ask any individual worker, 'Can you work harder,' they'll say, 'No.' But we are not keeping up with the rest of the world. One way or another, we need to re-examine what we do.

This goes to fundamental issues. We now have a 37.5-hour working week in Australia. I think it's 37. We've got people who only want to work four days a week, not come to work and do everything else that goes with that. I think we all, as Australians, need to put our shoulders a little harder to the wheel. I don't think I will win a lot of votes advocating for a 40-hour week. But maybe that's what we need. Maybe Australia needs to go back to having all of us going just a little bit harder. For me, a 40-hour week looks like taking most of it off. There are other people out there running delis and small businesses that are exactly the same as the people that work in this place. That is not a magic answer, but it's one option. I just think we all need to do a bit more.

The proposals of an ever-expanding holiday, workplace benefits, restrictions on workplace practices, working from home, and leave entitlements forever expanding—we just need to think about what it is we do here in this place. When I hear in South Australia that the government walks in one day and decides it would be a good idea if we had an extra public holiday on Easter Sunday—that's fine for them, apart from the hospitals. No-one was working for the government on Sunday but everybody out there running a deli on that day, everybody trying to cater for public services now has to pay double time and a half on Sunday when it would have been a regular weekend rate before. Those are the decisions that are made in Parliament House that have effect on the ground and that, in the end, affect things like the way that we deliver aged care. In aged care: higher wages—good, give it a tick. Better quality care? Absolutely, we're all in favour of that. Better facilities? Absolutely, we're in favour of it. But they all cost, and so do staffing ratios.

It's arguable, particularly with smaller facilities, that the staffing ratios should be different, and there should be far greater recognition. There was a little move in the last budget, for far greater recognition given the role of enrolled nurses in aged care. Now, I don't want to belittle anyone in the industry—a lot of aged care, though, is not rocket science. It's about having the right attitude—the aptitude, if you like. When people say, 'Why can't we get more people working in aged care?', I often say, 'Aged care, disability care or any other kind of care—it's not as if we are all adaptable to it or suitable.' I think you need to have vocation. Some people are just not good with other people. Maybe it's intentional or maybe it's genetic. I'm not sure they are the people that I want in aged care; I want people who are, by nature, treated by kindness, care and the capacity to take less than optimal—I don't mean in the sense of wages; I mean in the sense that they might have different customers but they need to rise above that. I think they do something very special.

One of the downsides of the royal commission that I lament was the focus on some bad facilities and some bad workers that I think, in a way, degraded care workers in the eyes of the public across the board. People were saying, 'I don't enjoy the job anymore because they all think that we're abusing these oldies in here.' I know from the facilities I walked into, the people I talked to and the people I know who work within them that it is not the case. It is not anything but a very tiny minority, but that minority gained a lot of airplay in that space. It had to be exposed—I'm not saying it doesn't—but there is collateral damage that sits within the industry. So we need to pay them better. We need to provide better facilities. This bill will help with all those things. But we also need to continue to recognise the contribution that those workers in the industry make, and generally what a wonderful job they do for caring for the people in this nation, for what it is.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I start, I pay tribute to the member for Nicholls and his contribution. I was honoured to be in the room for that contribution and I have no doubt that his father, Brian, was very and is very proud of him and everything he has achieved for his community before being elected and since being elected. What the member for Nicholls shared in his story—his courage—is that idea that aged care is something that we all have a stake in.

Whether you're already living in aged care, you have a family member or a grandparent in aged care, or you're thinking about your own future, it is in the interests of all Australians that we have a strong and dignified aged-care system. It's something that we are all touched by at some point in our lives, and in many ways we as a society will be defined by how we treat those in aged care and how we treat young people as well.

I am very lucky to have a lot of great facilities and aged care facilities in my community, and I want to pay tribute to two that I was able to visit in the last two weeks. I was able to present Australian flags to Monda Lodge in Healesville and AdventCare in Warburton. This gave me a great opportunity to talk to the residents, to hear their stories and to hear in a really positive way about how they are enjoying their time at those facilities, and that is what we need to do. As the member for Grey, the member for Nicholls and so many have said, we need to look after those who have built our communities and our country.

The coalition wants to see a thriving aged-care sector. That's why we called for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. We've remained resolute in advocating for the dignity and clarity that older Australians deserve, and that is why, while looking to work in a bipartisan and collaborative way with the government, we will reserve our position until the committee delivers its final report.

This bill delivers on the first recommendation of the royal commission, which is to implement a new rights-based aged-care act. The Aged Care Bill 2024 will replace the Aged Care Act and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act. The issues for our aged-care system are undeniable. More than half of the aged-care homes across the nation are operating at a loss. We have an ageing population. Australians have a desire to stay at home for as long as possible. These things combined show us that we must change the way that aged care is delivered. We also need to recognise and acknowledge what the Intergenerational report and many other reports show: aged care is one of the top five costs, spends or investments in the federal budget. But we need to make sure that that is sustainable going forward, because we know projections are for deficits as far as the eye can see.

In my electorate of Casey, many older residents have a strong desire to stay at home and to remain a part of the community that they have spent their lives in, given the regional and rural nature of some parts. Many are able to do this with some help here and there from family. But the system is letting others down, and this is something I have spoken of previously. I know the member for Mayo, who is in the chamber, has also spoken about these challenges. I'm contacted regularly by elderly residents and their families about issues with accessing care at home through the My Aged Care system. Each and every week, my office assists constituents who are having difficulties accessing services that have been approved under their package.

In 20 October 2023, I wrote to the minister on behalf of a number of constituents who were unable to access services that had been approved through My Aged Care. One of these constituents—he is now 93 and his wife is 91—was not even able to get on a waiting list for mowing services. I was contacted by his daughter-in-law, who has been a fantastic advocate for her in-laws. She managed to get an assessor to come out to assess the mother, but the assessor couldn't assess the father in the same visit. Having received no notification of the outcome, she followed up with My Aged Care and was told that the mother's package had been approved back in May, but they were not notified. On the same call she was advised that her father's referral had 'got stuck in the system'. When seeking further information, she was informed that her mother's package had, in fact, no funding attached and there would be at least a 12-month wait for this service. These are two people in their 90s who just want some help getting their lawns mown. The toll this has taken not only on my elderly constituents but on their daughter-in-law, who has had no choice but to constantly follow this up, is unacceptable.

All this happened despite the minister being aware of the situation and replying in December last year to my correspondence. I wrote again to the minister and I received a response on 16 October. It states:

The government is working on reducing wait times.

The minister then goes on to say:

Support at Home will better support older people to remain independent at home through an increase in places, with an additional 300,000 places supported by 2034-35.

The minister 's solution for my 90-year-old constituents is that there will be support available in 10 years! It goes to show how out of touch the Labor government are with the needs of older Australians. They show no regard for their quality of life.

But these residents are not the only ones. I was contacted by the daughter of another community member, who said the following:

I have spent many hours advocating for mum, being her carer and getting her to and from medical appointments. But I would much rather she was able to benefit from the care designed to be delivered by her home care package and for me to have shared those same hours with her as her daughter, providing social care and creating memories. Instead, I have been "functional", doing jobs that needed doing but not enjoying all the mother daughter moments we should have. The system does not support that.

Through good-faith negotiations with the government, the coalition have achieved significant changes to the government's proposed legislation that will protect the interests of older Australians and future generations. We have worked tirelessly to ensure the government's reforms are fairer, particularly for Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement. That's why we pushed the government to include grandfathering arrangements for those already in the system or on waiting lists, lifetime caps, a much lower taper rate and an assurance that the federal government will remain the majority funder of aged care, not residents and those using the system.

One of the most critical outcomes of our efforts was the introduction of the grandfathering arrangements. These arrangements guarantee that Australians who are already in residential aged care, on a home-care package or assessed as waiting for their allocated home-care package will not see any changes to their existing arrangements. In effect, it means that all Australians currently in the aged-care system will not pay one cent more for their aged care.

We also advocated for a lower taper rate towards care contributions, to ensure those who have worked hard and saved for their retirement are dealt a fairer deal. The taper rates we demanded mean that funding contributions increase at a much slower rate than the government wanted.

We also fought for the maintenance of a lifetime cap on care contributions. These caps we demanded mean that Australians will always know that the maximum they can ever be required to contribute is fixed, to give them certainty. Importantly, the maintenance of a lifetime cap will provide families with peace of mind when it comes to the associated costs of caring for their loved ones.

In addition to these financial safeguards, the coalition secured an additional investment of $300 million in capital funding for regional, rural and remote aged-care providers, who are struggling to remain open under the Albanese government. The coalition has always recognised that rural and regional aged-care homes face unique challenges and need more support from the government. This funding is critical for upgrading facilities that often struggle to meet the necessary standards due to financial constraints.

We also worked hard to remove criminal penalties from this bill, following serious concerns that they would force the exit of highly capable staff from the sector in fear of being criminally punished to a level not seen in any other industry. Let's be very clear: by removing criminal penalties from this bill, the coalition has not given a free ticket to providers in the wrong. Existing workplace health and safety laws, banning orders and criminal codes provide the necessary regulatory framework to hold people to account, without driving people away from the industry with fear and scare tactics, to make sure that our older Australians can get the care they need and deserve. We already know worker shortages, particularly in regional and rural facilities, but also in all facilities, are an ongoing challenge.

We also squashed Labor's outrageous attempt to force unionism into every aged-care home. Labor wanted a workers representative to be able to come into every single aged-care home and demand an explanation on any aspect of its operations. We support aged-care providers working consultatively with their staff, but we will not let unions march into aged-care homes and tell them how to do their jobs.

While there have been significant achievements made by the coalition during our negotiations with the government, the government has failed to address critical issues such as workforce shortages, regulatory impacts and implementation timelines in this bill. These details are so crucial. As we've seen time and time again, creating the policy and announcing the policy are in some ways the easy part. The implementation and the detail of how we get this right are so crucial, particularly when we are talking about aged care and any care sector where we're looking after our most vulnerable. As we see with the examples of my community members that I talked about previously, if rollouts are going to take 10 years, we need to understand the human cost of that delay.

The coalition is seeking to ensure the introduction of this bill will not force the closure of more homes but instead result in the commencement of critical new builds across the sector. We are disappointed by the lack of transparency the government has shown to the Australian public throughout the entire process of these reforms, with the conversations forced to occur behind closed doors, which caused anxiety for many in our community. It is clear from the two inquiry hearings held thus far that there is notable frustration from older Australians and the sector. The frustration is that many of the changes proposed by the government were not consulted upon.

The bill, however, aims to ensure that the Commonwealth aged-care services remain accessible to those who require them today and into the future. It seeks to promote dignity, independence and a meaningful life for older Australians, which the coalition and I remain committed to. We will continue to consult with older Australians and the sector through the ongoing inquiry process and work through the issues that are raised as we seek to achieve dignity and clarity for all older Australians. We will continue to seek to do that in a bipartisan way. Despite the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and many others, when it comes to two of the biggest costs to the budget—the NDIS and aged care—the coalition has worked in a constructive, collaborative and bipartisan way to deliver results for all Australians to improve the outcomes while always continuing to hold the government to account.

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

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety found in 2021 that the treatment of older Australians in the aged-care system was characterised by neglect. It shocked the sector, the community and governments into action. This bill was borne out of that royal commission. So it's somewhat disappointing to know that the majority of the debate on this bill has actually occurred in the Federation Chamber. This isn't an amendment; this is an entirely new act. And I feel incredibly disappointed that this bill has not been debated or heard in the main chamber.

This bill, if passed, will implement 58 of the 148 royal commission recommendations handed down in 2021. It will provide more tailored support for older people, with eight ongoing levels of funding of around $78,000 per year and short-term support for palliative care, which I think is critical and which is something that I've raised directly with the minister in months and years gone by. So I'm pleased to say that that will be in there, and that will allow people in that palliative stage of life to hopefully stay at home for as much as possible. It will provide for home modifications and access to assistive technology, including a new equipment loan scheme.

While organisations which deliver aged-care services will now also be allowed to deliver assessment services, I have received assurances that monitoring will occur to prevent conflicts of interest so that a provider can't use assessments as a make-work scheme for their own business. We have seen that in other sectors.

I'm pleased the bill provisions aim to address serious delays in obtaining aged-care assessments, but I believe it should set out a statutory timeframe for the delivery of assessments and the allocation of packages, as we have seen these blow out so much, depending entirely on how much is allocated in the federal budget, year on year. Waiting lists are now so long that it takes 13 months after assessment for a high-level package to be delivered, and that is utterly shameful.

We don't even know exactly how many people are on the waiting list. The government's own website hasn't updated its figures since the March quarter, which is disgraceful in itself. But it's believed—from questions in the parliament—that there are around 76,000 older Australian that are waiting for care at home. People are dying while waiting for a package, and some people are seeing no other option but to take their own life, with voluntary assisted dying, because they're deteriorating while they're waiting for that elusive package. It's almost like it's a mirage on the horizon.

I thank the Council on the Ageing, National Seniors Australia, the Older Persons Advocacy Network, the Aged & Community Care Providers Association and other advocates for their efforts to improve the experiences of older Australians in the aged-care system.

While I support this bill in principle, I do believe that it misses the mark in some respects. I am disappointed the bill will not create an independent complaints commissioner. An independent complaints commissioner with teeth and a transparent complaints process are needed in order to best protect consumers' rights.

I have funding concerns. I'm concerned about the funding model for the system, going forward. Older Australians will be carrying the burden for the sector's funding shortfall and to deliver savings to the government. The increased user-pays approach to aged care will make life incredibly difficult for many. Even if only one partner needs high-level care, many couples with a family home will likely need to sell the home to cover the significantly increased contributions towards ongoing care fees and higher refundable deposits for residential aged care.

Providers will now be able to charge a maximum refundable deposit of $750,000 that will be indexed over time—that's up from $550,000—without seeking regulatory approval. With compound interest calculated at a conservative six per cent and retaining two per cent per annum of the $750,000 refundable deposit, a provider will be able to obtain up to $328,699 over five years or more, per resident. It is not clear how the government will ensure that the additional funds are spent, as intended, on improving facilities and constructing new aged-care beds as our ageing population continues to grow. Further, the bill provides the operation of the deposits will not be reviewed until 2029. We cannot provide a blank cheque to aged-care providers at the expense of older Australians.

I would like to point out that, in addition to the significantly increased refundable deposits for aged care, residents will also be liable to pay for the following charges, and these, I understand, are not capped over a lifetime: basic daily care fees of tens of thousands of dollars per year; and daily extra services, now 'higher everyday living fees', of thousands of dollars per year, set at the discretion of the provider. I receive feedback that my constituents are often charged these fees even if they don't or are unable to use the services, such as wine and television. There are daily accommodation payments for those who are unable to repay the refundable deposit. These fees will combine to leave some older people, particularly if partnered, with an incredibly high level of cost, and it's my view that this will likely impact women in particular, given that they have a longer life expectancy than men.

Other social schemes, such as Medicare, child care or the NDIS, do not require contributions of this magnitude. After listening to concerns raised, I've asked the minister for more information on how the 'no worse off' principle will apply in practice. There is a grey area with respect to grandfathering and whether that also applies to how people use their current package. Many have raised concerns with me about the limitation of their package regarding cleaning and gardening. If you live in a regional area, you generally have a bigger garden, and many tell me that it is having the garden cared for, having support in the garden, which allows them to stay home. That helps them manage the bushfire risk. What we are saying to people accessing NDIS is, 'You have a choice and control.' What we say to older Australians is: 'We will be prescriptive. We will tell you what you need, and we're going to try to extract from you the very maximum that we possibly think is politically palatable for the privilege.'

National Seniors Australia have shared their view that the bill and the explanatory memorandum contain insufficient detail regarding the Support at Home means test and thresholds to allow people to calculate means testing for all incomes. They posit that the means test regime—with 14 steps, 10 threshold areas and various contributions and supplements—is neither clear nor simplified enough for all consumers to understand. Furthermore, I'm extremely disappointed that the bill doesn't deliver on recommendation 72—that is, that older people on disability support should receive equitable treatment in comparison to those on the NDIS. I've raised this issue many times with ministers of both this government and the previous government, as well as in the media. It is age discrimination, and it should be addressed. The system as it is now means that if you are 65 you can't go on the age pension, but you certainly can't go on NDIS either; it's a great inequity. We need to make sure that we address that.

I've also heard from key stakeholders that the statutory review of the act five years after it commences operation is too late. I'm seeking an amendment to require a review of the operation of the act three years after the commencement of the act with key terms of reference for the review to be set out in the bill.

Much of the detail of the new aged-care regime is devolved into the rules and other instruments, such as service lists, which will not be subject to sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. This includes rules in relation to the list of services for the purpose of means testing to establish consumer contributions. Some peak bodies and several constituents have raised concerns regarding the inclusion of independence services, rather than clinical care services, such as showering, feeding and dispensing medication. Such services are likely to be clinically required and are not optional extras or nice to have. How on earth can we think that being assisted into the shower is a 'nice to have'? That is clinical care. It is ridiculous. They are often essential for older people's health, and I'm concerned that requiring significant contributions for independence versus clinical care services could lead to adverse outcomes if this discourages people from obtaining such essential services with personal care—as I said, showering, feeding and medication. This will have dire consequences for the physical health of people.

My constituent Betty, whose husband is living at home with dementia, shared a common problem with me:

The contribution for personal care is a concern as it makes it sound like a choice. I'm worried that carers may try cutting down on the service, which is essential. My husband, a large man, has collapsed in the shower twice. Fortunately, last time a carer was there to help, and I could call the ambulance while she held him. Showering a person with dementia is surely an essential service. The carer, just by luck, was an experienced nurse the last time my husband collapsed, and she was wonderful. The previous time I was on my own, and it was traumatic.

Current delays in home-care packages and CHSP must be addressed. The promises of support at home in this piece of legislation is purely academic for those who are currently waiting for a home-care package. One hundred per cent of providers who responded to Anglicare Australia's 2024 Life on the waitlist report said they could not meet the demand for CHSP—Commonwealth Home Support Program—in their community due to funding restrictions, workforce issues and regional challenges.

It often takes not months but years to find a CHSP provider in my electorate of Mayo. In those circumstances, giving regional and rural people a CHSP code is just a cruel fiction. I'm heartily disappointed that the government has ignored opportunities to commit sufficient resources to address this in the last two budgets.

The Aged and Community Care Providers Association has advised that 55,000 additional home-care packages are needed to address the now 76,000-strong waitlist in the federal budget. Seventy-three per cent of their members said they could deliver additional home care. While this would come at an approximate cost of $1.8 billion, that does not take into account the anticipated savings to government from increased contributions from people receiving funded services under the new Support at Home program, and nor does it reflect the savings due to the delay in people taking up more costly residential aged-care places because they're able to be supported at home for longer. Also, of course, that does not even address the fact that many people are ending up hospitalised because they're not getting any support at home.

Older Australians can't wait for Support at Home to commence before these egregious wait times of 12 to 15 months are addressed by the government. Support at Home can only be as good as the funding that's committed; otherwise, existing delays will simply be inherited. I again call on the government to urgently address this chronic underfunding of CHSP and home-care packages, and to properly resource Support at Home in the future.

Now, we're talking about numbers here—76,000; a 15-month waiting list—but we are really talking about real people, and I would like to share the story of one of those real people. Cyril is 86 years of age. He weighed 80 kilos when he was assessed as needing a level 4 package in January this year. Cyril is six feet tall; he's a tall man. Nine months later, Cyril was down to 42 kilos. He was then told that the wait for care would be some months more, and he lost hope.

In October, Cyril had yet another fall and he was hospitalised again. He then felt that he was too far gone.

Cyril's a carpenter, a musician, a husband who cared for his wife until she died, and then, at that point, embarked on another career, as a carer. Cyril didn't retire until he was 81 himself. But, when it was time for someone to care for him, he was abandoned.

I met Cyril a few weeks ago. He wants to be remembered as someone who has spoken out about home-care packages. He very much wanted to go to the media and talk about this abominable situation—that is, that a gentleman who lives alone and was assessed in January this year as needing a level 4, by September was still told his package would be months away. He has gone through the process of obtaining the medication to have voluntary assisted dying because, at 42 kilos of weight—again, he started at 80 kilos of weight in January—he doesn't see how he can come back from that. And he is now bedbound after a fall. If he had had the support at home, if he had had a chair in his shower, if he had had aids to better help him, if he'd had someone to come and help him wash, someone to come and help him prepare meals, the story for Cyril would have been very, very different. I'm very sorry that Cyril has had this experience. And we must do so much better.

We talk about this bill, but, until we address home care, it really does mean nothing.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not many issues have had bipartisan support in the 47th Parliament, but I'm glad that this essential reform to our failing aged-care system has support from both sides of the floor and the crossbench. Ageing is a privilege but can also be a burden. Our older Australians deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and clarity, which is why the royal commission into aged care made it so clear that the new aged care act should have a rights based approach, with a focus on people.

An effective aged-care system will not only give older people improved quality of life, with access to medical care, social opportunities and community engagement; it will also help families manage the added challenges of an ageing loved one and provide peace of mind that their family member is supported and safe. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was established in 2018 in response to damning incidents of neglect, abuse and negligence in nursing homes across the country. The final report, with 148 recommendations, was handed down in February 2021 and looked at whether aged-care services were meeting the needs of the community. The royal commission found the community expected certain central themes from the aged-care system: dignity and respect, control and choice, the importance of relationships and connections to communities, and the desire for a good quality of life and ageing at home.

A key recommendation of the commission was the development of a new act, and I'm glad to see the government delivering on that recommendation. A simplified aged-care system is beneficial for all, and it's a welcome change to have one piece of legislation and a single set of subordinate legislation called the rules. I note that the rules are currently in consultation phase and haven't been finalised, and this means that we don't yet have a confirmed outline of how the Aged Care Bill 2024 will actually be implemented. Given there are more than 600 references to the new rules in this bill, which means there are more than 600 times that we're being asked to assume the consultation draft will be adequate, the passing of the rules is a very big part of this legislation. It includes important parts of the system change, like the Aged Care Code of Conduct and the Aged Care Quality Standards, audit requirements, dealing with complaints, and conditions of registration. There were a number of changes made after consultation on the draft that have made it easier to support this bill—for example, the statement of rights was made stronger with the inclusion of 'must', the independence of the complaints commission was strengthened, and criminal penalties for service provider boards were removed.

My office receives a large number of emails in relation to aged-care services, both as case work and in response to policy announcements. In fact, given the volume of queries we have from constituents about the supports available to them or their parents, we put out a Curtin seniors guide to help people navigate the aged-care system and Centrelink. This has been a very popular resource, with more than 1,500 distributed to people across Curtin. If constituents would like one, they can pick up a hard copy from my office or download it from the website.

After the exposure draft of the new Aged Care Bill was released last year, I held a community forum and invited participants to come and discuss what they thought was important to include in a new aged care act. We had a room full of interested people. First we heard from Mark Kinsela from the Council on the Ageing WA about aspects of the act such as the statement of rights, the complaints process, the new access pathway and the enhanced choice and control for consumers. And then we ran a workshop so people could share their concerns and what they liked about the new approach. I want to thank everyone who participated in that workshop and contributed their views, which were captured in our Curtin community submission on the Aged Care Bill exposure draft. I found that people in my electorate were chiefly concerned with the humanity of the system. They wanted people to be treated as individuals with connections to their communities which continue into later life. They also wanted to have self-direction as they got older, with the ability to choose their preferred living arrangements and the manner of their death. That is why I'm happy to support this bill, with a few caveats.

At the outset, I want to state what may be seen as the obvious: people are worried about how these changes to the aged-care system will affect them personally. We get so many calls and emails from constituents who are struggling to navigate the current aged-care system, and they're really worried that they'll be expected to navigate something new. That is why this reform must be simple, accessible and user-friendly, and it must be responsive to need. The current system is not supplying support when it's required—for example, one constituent, 93-year-old Mabel, was assessed and granted a level 3 home-care package in July last year and waited until this July for her service to begin. It's hard to comprehend how support for a 93-year-old is not urgent.

I know that the Minister for Aged Care has the best of intentions that this new aged-care scheme will streamline a broken system, and I want to emphasise the importance of clearly communicating the changes to all older Australians and their loved ones. I appreciate a recent speech where the minister said, 'I hear your feedback that reform cannot just happen to you, and that you need to be brought along the journey.' I will be representing my community to make sure this promise is enacted.

I think the definition of clinical care, which will be paid for by the government, and independent care and everyday living, which the client will pay part of, depending on assets, is an important distinction that may not be clearly understood. Change is difficult at the best of times, and, when it's changing how people are planning to age or care for their ageing family members, individuals really need to know how they will be affected. I appreciate the comprehensive website explainers about the new legislation and hope there'll be ongoing community engagement as the new reforms roll out.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 7.30, the debate is interrupted and resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Curtin will have leave to continue her remarks on a future date.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:30