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

I was saying earlier in the course of this second reading debate on the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 that I wanted to commend the minister for having steered his way through a very difficult issue. The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs is a busy committee and the members of the committee always relish the opportunity to get stuck into significant issues, but on this particular occasion the committee was grateful that the heavy lifting of the complex issues which had been canvassed with the community in relation to this legislation had already been done by the Minister for Ageing by the time the committee came to consider the legislation. As a result, the consensus of those who appeared before the committee was that the legislation was effective and worth while and should be proceeded with as soon as possible.

As I mentioned before, a key element of this legislation is the harmonising of gifting arrangements and income tests to ensure that the arrangements as applied to eligibility for pensions should line up as much as possible with the arrangements governing eligibility for subsidised places in aged-care facilities in Australia. It is, of course, extremely important that older Australians, who often face the prospect of moving into residential care at a stressful point in their lives, should have an opportunity for arrangements to be as simple as possible without intruding into fairness or public accountability. This legislation achieves that. It aligns those two tests so that if a person is eligible for a pension, they will in most circumstances be eligible for a subsidised place in aged-care facilities as well.

The other arrangements that the legislation enacts have been covered by other senators in this debate; there is no need for me to repeat those. They provide, broadly speaking, for more flexibility in the way in which people are dealt with when it comes to seeking that subsidy and ensures that there is a harmonisation of arrangements between those different spheres of operation.

It is important to note that, having reached the point where this legislation can pass through the parliament reasonably swiftly and with support, once again we have a position where the government has a clear policy on aged care. This is a policy now backed up by a number of years of demonstrating its good faith and its commitment to this area by making simpler and fairer arrangements with respect to eligibility for benefits provided by the federal government and also with a significant commitment of funding to back up that commitment.

The Australian Labor Party has not been able to come up with a clear aged-care policy in this area, despite having made promises, as it has made promises from time to time in the past, since the last election. I note that only recently the Australian Labor Party released an ageing policy discussion paper. I suppose that is one small step towards some clear idea of what the Australian Labor Party actually believes in in the area of ageing. But that is not a policy, and I look forward, as I am sure others in this place do, to clearly understanding what the alternative is that is offered by the Australian Labor Party. It has had 10 years of leisure in opposition to be able to put together a policy. There has been more than enough opportunity in that period to formulate a policy.

The discussion paper, in the meantime, does contain a number of factual errors, omissions and a lack of understanding of current aged-care policy and programs. The discussion paper claims, for example, that the leadership of the federal government in the area of aged care is lacking, despite the track record that I spoke of a moment ago. For example, in the past 10 years the federal government has more than doubled the amount that it spends on service delivery for older Australians. This government knows that the population has been ageing and it knows that there is an increase in our aged population as a proportion of the total Australian population, but it certainly has not come anywhere near doubling it. It is surprising on the face of it for there to be such a large extra commitment. But, in fact, it reflects this government’s view that much more needs to be done to make older Australians comfortable and properly cared for in old age.

The paper claims to have come up with a range of policy options in the area of healthy ageing, community care and residential care. However, I think it is true to say that, in all those areas, concrete policy proposals are actually very thin and overlook the fact that, in all of those areas, there are already significant government policies and government initiatives not just on the table but actually operational. The Howard government is committed to the National Strategy for an Ageing Australia, and the amendments in this bill before the Senate at the moment are designed to simplify the interaction of the aged-care and pension arrangements for greater transparency and to facilitate wise financial planning for older Australians. They will apply from 1 January 2007.

These comments are of course very timely, as this week has been designated as Carers Week around Australia. It is quite appropriate that we should take the opportunity of passing a piece of legislation such as this to note the significant contribution made to the wellbeing of Australians by the 2.6 million people who choose each year to be carers for other Australians. One in eight Australians are carers at the present time. Very often—in fact, almost always—those people are carers for reasons beyond their control. That is, a member of their family or a close friend is, for whatever reason, incapacitated or in need of particular assistance and those Australians, out of an honourable sense of duty, choose to become carers for those people. The community owes them an enormous debt of gratitude.

The slogan for Carers Week this year is ‘Anyone, anytime’, which connotes the idea not only that the need to be a carer can spring up in anyone’s case but also that the capacity to deliver that kind of care is something which many Australians readily undertake and readily acknowledge. In that context, finding ways of easing the burden is very important. Respite for all carers is extremely important. That has certainly been the subject of a number of initiatives of this government, as have other ways to offset what is a tremendous financial commitment made in kind by those carers to the Australian community. It has been estimated that some $31 billion is the economic value of the care which those carers provide, and we need to acknowledge that in the course of a debate like the one we are having today.

I also want to note that the Australian Greens have foreshadowed a number of amendments to this legislation. The points made by Senator Nettle in the debate earlier today are reasonable points to take on board. I think she certainly has some points that need to be carefully considered by government. The points about the needs of older Australians from non-English-speaking backgrounds are well understood by members all over this chamber. We have all had experiences of older Australians of that kind having difficulty adjusting to residential care where their own cultural background is not properly catered for. We also need to ensure that the workforce issues which go with that are properly and fully addressed. Again, the government has demonstrated a commitment to deal with those issues.

Senator Nettle also raised, and her proposed amendments directly deal with, the issue of same-sex couples seeking access to nursing homes in Australia and to aged-care facilities. Again, some reasonable points have been raised in the course of that contribution by Senator Nettle, but I make the comment that the changes which Senator Nettle has put forward in the course of this debate clearly entail very significant changes to the position as understood and applied by providers of these services in the community. I think it would be unfortunate if the Senate were, at the end of a reasonably long process, to arrive at these amendments and in the course of this debate to impose additional conditions on aged-care providers about which no consultation has at this point occurred—or at least none that I am aware of. These amendments would certainly entail a change of arrangement and possibly a cost to those providers, and I think it is unfortunate that we should contemplate such arrangements, such changes, in place without having done the appropriate consultation around them. This has been a process in which, as I have said, there has been genuine consensus about what needs to be done. It would be unfortunate if we introduced into this an element of changing the arrangements which was not a matter of consensus between the industry, government and others involved in this debate.

I want to close by again congratulating the government on this legislation. It is a very positive step forward which will be welcomed by older Australians and their families as decisions are made about either moving into aged accommodation or moving between different forms of aged accommodation in Australia. Easing the burden in those circumstances is a very important duty that falls on all of us, and I think the government has discharged that duty very well with the decisions it makes today.

I know that, when the minister first took on the mantle of Minister for Ageing, it was put to him very early on in his tenure that a whole range of problems needed to be solved. People were beating on his door almost before he had squeezed into his chair, demanding that certain long-term—