Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Aged Care (Bond Security) Bill 2005, the Aged Care (Bond Security) Levy Bill 2005 and the Aged Care Amendment (2005 Measures No. 1) Bill 2005. Labor supports these bills but is underwhelmed by the Howard government’s approach to dealing with the very real and growing problems in the aged care sector.

The Aged Care (Bond Security) Bill 2005 and cognate bills, when enacted, will create a process through which, in the unfortunate event that a nursing home were to become insolvent, the Commonwealth would step in and ensure that the accommodation deposits were refunded to residents and their families. While this package of bills will provide greater security for those deposits and picks up one of the recommendations of the Hogan report on aged care, it fails to address the rest. However, the one recommendation these bills do address, recommendation 9, covers an issue that is not the most pressing area of concern. As far as I know, there has not been one single instance of a bond not being repaid due to bankruptcy or insolvency of an aged care service provider. It is prudent that we act to close off the possibility of someone losing a bond at some time in the future, but with these bills the Howard government has shown that it is not serious about addressing more immediate problems, like the shortages of aged care beds, regional distortions in the allocation of aged care beds and growing waiting lists.

You might well ask why the government has ignored the more substantial recommendations of the Hogan review and has chosen instead to solve a problem that does not yet exist. It is because it gives government backbenchers the opportunity to trot out some key lines in a speech to make it appear as though these bills address the real and growing problems in the aged care sector. They do not. On 8 February 2006, Mr Stuart Henry, the marginal member for Hasluck, made a very enthusiastic speech on these bills in the other place. In that speech, Mr Henry describes these bills as ‘a striking example of the Howard government’s commitment to the welfare and dignity of senior Australians’. Mr Henry went on to trot out a range of government key lines—straight from the government media office script—such as:

This new legislation demonstrates the Howard government’s commitment to provide Australians with a world-class aged care system.

He also said:

Providing high quality, affordable and accessible services which meet the individual needs and choices—

and blah blah blah—I am sure you get the idea. You have to give it the member for Hasluck. He is trying his hardest to make these very meagre reforms sound impressive. I suggest that the reason he is being so over the top in his praise of these bills is that he is embarrassed by the Howard government’s continued inaction to address the real problems in the aged care sector.

If government senators will not take my word for it, they might be interested in what their former leader, Mr John Hewson, had to say. In an article in the Australian Financial Review on 20 January 2006, Mr Hewson wrote:

... commonwealth/state financial relations and the division of responsibilities is the single most festering sore on our national aspirations and capacities.

Mr Hewson then went on to list a range of key structural expenditure issues which he believes are consistently ignored by the Howard government before writing:

... aged care is a significantly bigger issue that the government cannot afford to keep avoiding. The Hogan report should not be left on the shelf.

So, according to the Liberal Party’s former leader, Mr John Hewson, aged care is a festering sore on our national aspirations. That might have been a more accurate key line for the member for Hasluck’s speech, but the truth rarely makes for good propaganda.

If we look at the first recommendation of the Hogan report, we can see why Mr Hewson says the Howard government has left it on the shelf. Recommendation 1 calls on the Howard government to come good on its 2001 commitment to provide 108 places for every 1,000 Australians over the age of 70. The failure to provide an adequate number of residential aged care beds is a continuing indictment of the Howard government’s inability to address the problems in the aged care sector.

In the last full year of the Labor government in 1995, there were 92 residential aged care beds for every 1,000 Australians aged over 70 years. The Howard government immediately lowered the standard and set itself a benchmark of providing only 90 residential aged care beds for every 1,000 Australians aged over 70 years. Yet, after 10 long years of Howard government mismanagement, there were only 85 residential aged care beds for every 1,000 Australians aged over 70 years by June 2005. This is a shortfall of over 9,000 beds.

Instead of working to meet its own lowered target, the Howard government is going backwards. On top of that, there are now over 20,000 phantom beds in the system for which residential aged care places have been allocated but no beds have been built. Is this a demonstration of the world-class system the member for Hasluck would have us believe the Howard government is committed to delivering? I think not.

In my home state of Western Australia, there is a shortage of some 787 beds against the Howard government’s lowered benchmark of 90 beds per 1,000. This is unacceptable. But the reason the Howard government thinks it can get away with this continued failure is that the Western Australian state government is forced to pick up the Howard government’s slack. On any given day there are over 100 Western Australians stuck in the state health system’s metropolitan hospitals, with a further 120 Western Australians stuck in rural hospitals who have been assessed as requiring a residential aged care bed but for whom no beds are available. The Western Australian state government has to divert considerable resources to provide care for people who are being forced to wait too long for a Commonwealth funded aged care bed to become available.

In 2005-06, the Western Australian state government budgeted $49 million of state government money to provide its care awaiting placement program in metropolitan hospitals and beds for nursing home type patients in rural hospitals where there is no nursing home in the area. The evidence shows that waiting times are getting worse. When the Howard government came to power in 1996, the average waiting time was less than a month. By 2001, the average waiting time had blown out to 55 days. After 10 years of Howard government mismanagement, the Productivity Commission reported that, by 2005, 30 per cent of people assessed as requiring a residential aged care bed were being forced to wait more than three months for a bed to become available. The cost of these waiting times created by the lack of Commonwealth provided aged care beds in my home state is being borne by the Western Australian taxpayers and, in turn, causing shortages in the number of hospital beds available to Western Australians. Is this a demonstration of the accessible services the member for Hasluck would have us believe the Howard government is committed to delivering? I think not.

While the number of residential aged care beds has decreased under the Howard government, the average cost of a bond has increased dramatically. When the Howard government came to office in 1996, the average cost of a new bond was only $26,000. After 10 years, the average cost of a new bond has increased to over $127,000. That is a massive increase and represents a significant proportion of the life savings of the average Australian. Is this a demonstration of the affordable aged care system the member for Hasluck would have us believe the Howard government is committed to delivering? I think not.

In May 2005, the member for Hasluck, Mr Stuart Henry, published an article in his community newsletter titled ‘Federal minister on visit to Amaroo retirement village’. In the article Mr Henry said that he wanted the minister to visit Amaroo Village because he had been impressed by the sense of community he had found amongst the residents and by the quality of the facilities provided. Senator McLucas, Labor’s shadow minister for ageing, disabilities and carers, and I have also been to Amaroo Village. We were also impressed by the sense of community and quality of care provided there. Amaroo Village is a credit to the dedicated staff and volunteers who work there. All the residents we spoke to were glowing in their praise of the care they received.

Mr Henry’s article did not mention that there is a two-year waiting list for a bed in Amaroo Village. Mr Henry’s article did not mention that, with a turnover of fewer than 10 residents a year, there is little prospect of the waiting list shortening in the near future. Mr Henry also failed to mention that the management of Amaroo Village had estimated that the value of the labour contributed by volunteers is over $750,000 a year, without which the centre would not be able to afford to operate. If Mr Henry’s idea of a world-class aged care system is one with a two-year waiting list kept afloat by the unpaid work of volunteers then he is doing his constituents a disservice. After 10 long years, the legacy of the Howard government has been fewer beds, longer waitlists and higher bonds. The people of Hasluck, the people of Western Australia and the people of Australia deserve better.