Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party will be supporting this amendment. This amendment goes to the protection of whistleblowers—those people who have a view that something that they have seen is untoward or inappropriate. The Labor Party, along with coalition members of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, recommended in its report—which, I say again, was tabled 10 months ago—that the government undertake an analysis of the suitability of whistleblower protection. This amendment puts into action protection of employment for people who expose something that they think is untoward.

We heard during the last few weeks that one of the horrific events, the abuse of an elderly person, was apparently witnessed by a person and that that person did not report it. It is almost indescribable how offensive that is, but you have to ask why that person did not respond in the absolutely predictable human way and report to somebody that they had witnessed something inappropriate.

This amendment in itself will not prevent such events, unless that person was worried about their job or the potential for a defamation action to follow. What we really need to do in those circumstances is to look to the culture of the facility that allows that to occur. This amendment does go some way to protecting people who disclose that they have seen something untoward that should be reported. The other concern that I have is that the media have reported that someone who did blow the whistle about another event—someone who did report to the person in charge of the facility that they had witnessed something untoward—was sacked. That was one of those cases of shooting the messenger.

This is a sound amendment. Hopefully, the government will support it and, if they do not, I encourage them to explain why it is an inappropriate measure at this point. If the minister is saying that this is not an appropriate measure, what is the minister going to do about ensuring that people who come forward with honestly held concerns will be protected in the transfer of that information from either defamation or loss of their position with the aged care facility? The minister knows that this has happened. The Senate Community Affairs References Committee report also made a recommendation that asked the government what it was going to do about retribution and intimidation. We had strong evidence through the committee process that these things are occurring not only to staff of residential aged care facilities but also to residents and their families.

It is incumbent upon this government to take the committee’s 51 recommendations seriously. It was a unanimous report and those recommendations were made in good faith. We now have the situation where the government is piecemeal picking them off—slowly, slowly—because it has been forced to by these extraordinary and abhorrent revelations that we have heard about over the last month. Let’s do something in a systematic way. Let’s get the response to our report. Let’s find out what the government intends to do. Let’s get on with the job of restoring confidence in residential aged care because it has been sorely threatened by what we have heard over the last month. The Labor Party will be supporting this amendment and we look forward to the government’s support as well.