Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the few minutes I have I want to begin some remarks on the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 and to commend the government and the Minister for Ageing for generating in this bill a very satisfactory solution to a fairly difficult problem. Residential aged care has the potential, as we all know, to be extremely controversial. Issues concerning the eligibility of citizens for subsidised places in aged-care facilities and issues concerning gifting arrangements and their effect on things like accommodation bonds generate great reactions from individuals and their families when those individuals seek to move into aged-care facilities in Australia.

Given that background, what the minister has done in this case is produce a piece of legislation that neatly solves a number of problems, greatly simplifies the arrangements whereby individuals can both seek pensions and seek subsidised places in aged-care facilities, and incidentally at the same time achieve a significant saving to the taxpayer from the way in which these arrangements are administered. So the minister deserves to be warmly commended by the Senate for his efforts in this area. He was launched into controversy almost from the beginning of his tenure as minister, based on a number of concerns about issues in aged-care facilities around Australia. He has obviously sat down and carefully thought through the issues and produced a piece of legislation that neatly addresses all of those issues simultaneously.

These arrangements will make a saving of some $70 million over the next four or five financial years from the budgets of the Department of Health and Ageing and of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Those changes are made not only with those savings in mind but in a way that has garnered and maintained community support. The harmonising of gifting arrangements and income tests as between eligibility for pensions and eligibility for subsidised places in aged-care facilities is an extremely important part of that process. Again I want to say that the minister has done an exceptionally good job in being able to steer the issues through those difficult waters.

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs began an inquiry into this bill a few weeks ago expecting to encounter a great deal of opposition and concern from different parts of the community. The reality is that very few organisations chose to comment on the matter, and those that did indicated quite clearly that they supported the changes being proposed. I want to put on the record my appreciation to the minister for his hard work in delivering that kind of outcome and making the work of the Senate community affairs committee that much simpler as a result of his hard work before the bill was presented to the Senate. I think we have here a good piece of legislation that will serve the Australian community well and which will make it much simpler for people to seek access to aged-care facilities in the future.

Debate interrupted.