Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006, as has been said, has two main effects. Firstly, the bill aims to harmonise the aged-care and pension assets test in relation to income streams and asset disposals. Secondly, the bill allows the secretary to delegate to specific members of the aged-care assessment teams to increase the maximum number of days allowed for a care recipient to receive residential respite care.

Whenever the issue of aged care comes before this place, we must treat it with the utmost seriousness and respect. The welfare of our aged citizens must be one of our primary concerns. Those in our community who, for reasons of age and health, require additional assistance and support deserve only our best efforts in setting up and maintaining aged care. We must recognise and acknowledge the debt we owe to our aged community. They are our parents and our grandparents; they are the generation that lived through the Great Depression, a world war and a rate of change in society that has been unequalled in human history. Many of them are part of that great wave of migration that took place after the Second World War and therefore many of them come from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Without our aged citizens we would not be the society that we are today. It is through their efforts that we are who we are. They are the people who built our nation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us that we must ensure that the legislation that deals with aged care is designed foremost with their needs in mind. We should never do anything but our best for them.

I believe that there is every reason for us to be very concerned about the state of aged care in this country. I know that the government will come into this place and trumpet its achievements. It will tell us how the number of aged-care placements per thousand people has increased. It will tell us about record numbers of aged-care places and record levels of expenditure. For example, currently there are 169,056 places in aged care. Projections sourced from Aged and Community Services Australia show that that will rise to 263,941 in 2021 and 356,512 in 2031. That shows that over the next 25 years the number of aged-care places will more than double.

But what steps are now being taken to ensure that there are sufficient skilled workers able to work in those facilities in the future? Over the next 25 years, if it is anticipated that the number of places will double, is it not also the case that the number of staff needed will double? What steps is this government taking to ensure that the places are available to train all of those additional staff? Is it a reasonable question to ask given that the places are now being created in our university systems for training of additional nurses? How many of them are being reserved for aged-care nurses? Aged care is not just about places. Our approach must take into account the need to train additional staff. When will the Minister for Ageing outline the government’s approach to ensure that we will have enough skilled staff to accommodate the expected increase in aged-care places? It is very simple to provide the bricks and mortar; it is a lot more complex to provide the care that needs to take place inside the bricks and mortar.

We know from bitter experience over the last 10 years that this is not a government with a good record on skill shortages. For years, the government denied that there was a problem. Only after a crisis that was already here and affecting the economy could the government stir itself to do something about it. This is a government that is concerned about the next election, not about what is going to happen in 25 years time. Although one of the key tasks of the Minister for Ageing should be to ensure that there will be sufficient trained staff to work in aged-care facilities, I suspect, based on our past experiences with this government, that no forward planning is yet being undertaken. Our fellow Australians surely deserve much better. Let us not reduce the future direction of aged care to being just about places. Let us also bring forward policies that ensure that we will have trained and skilled staff to work in all of the facilities in the future.

Let us also be clear that this government—that is, the government that is focused only on the next election—has failed in its delivery of places in the aged-care system. In my own state of Western Australia, the number of places for people aged over 70 years showed a shortfall of 262 places in December last year. In June this year, that shortfall had increased from 262 to 567 places. We are now seeing a situation develop in Western Australia where the number of places targeted—that is, 88 beds per thousand people aged 70 and over—has fallen. Nationally the figures are just as severe. The bed shortage versus the target now shows a shortfall of some 4,613 places. This simply is not good enough. The Commonwealth government is failing our aged citizens, and it is time for a new approach. Over the last 10 years, this federal government has seen a surplus of 800 beds turn into a shortfall of 4,613. We cannot afford another 10 years like that. We have to accept the reality that people are living longer and that this will have an impact on the delivery of aged care.

One of the greatest achievements of the Labor government from 1983 to 1996 was the introduction of compulsory superannuation. This was a nation-building activity of the very first order. We now require such a new approach in aged care. But all this government has done is tinker with the current system—kept the system ticking over from one election to the next. We need a Labor government that will treat the aged-care system with the type of forward planning that we used for superannuation. Only Labor is prepared to look beyond the next election. Only Labor is prepared to undertake a complete overhaul of aged care to build for the future. And only Labor is prepared to do the hard work to ensure that we have enough skilled workers for the aged-care system.

When discussing aged care, all of us in this place bring thoughts of our own families and needs. I am no different. My maternal grandmother is the glue that keeps my family in Victoria together. Some of us live in Western Australia; others have lived in other parts of Australia. But she is the glue that binds us together. On 29 August this year, the Melbourne Age carried an article titled ‘Nursing homes fall short’. The story was about two nursing homes, owned by the same company, that were failing several basic standards of accreditation. I know that Senator McLucas has referred to one of those facilities. The article said:

In one of the homes, medicines had been administered incorrectly or not at all, residents were not assured of getting the medical care they needed and had been kept out of one another’s rooms with chains.

The article said that the home:

... did not have enough qualified staff ‘to ensure that the residents receive appropriate clinical and lifestyle care’. In all it failed 22 standards.

The facts as reported in the Age tell one side of the story. The minister and his department will tell another. An accreditation audit reveals those standards that an aged-care facility meets and fails to meet. There is no doubt that an accreditation regime is an important element in ensuring decent standards. The one voice that is not clear in this issue is that of the residents and their families.

I should declare that I have more than a passing interest in the goings on in that aged-care facility. Although the facility—Plumpton Villa, as it is known—is in Glenroy in Victoria, and I live in Perth in Western Australia, I am interested in what is happening there because it is the facility where my grandmother is residing—that glue that keeps the fabric of my family together. Whilst Senator Barnett may come in here and talk about Labor’s approach as bringing a sledgehammer to crack a nut or nitpicking, a sledgehammer is not good enough when it comes to the care of my grandmother. I am prepared to do anything, including raising my voice in this chamber, to ensure that she is looked after in the way that she should be.

My grandmother, like many of her generation who lived through the Depression in Victoria, was a healthy woman for most of her life. The only time she went to hospital was to have her four children, until she needed to be admitted to her aged-care facility. She now suffers from osteoporosis. My grandmother, like many people who live in aged-care facilities these days, not only suffers from the lack of skilled workers, and their lack of understanding and training, but also from the torment of having to share the facility with dementia patients. Apart for the usual problems of osteoporosis, she is still relatively healthy and certainly has a robust and intellectually alert mind. To her mind, the facility that she lives in is now overrun with dementia patients and she feels as socially isolated as she did when she was living in her own home, even though it was the family’s view that she probably should move from her home to avoid social isolation.

I gather that, since the publicity in the Age, the caring regime at Plumpton Villa has improved—I can vouch from personal experience that it no longer smells the way it used to. However, I would like to place the villa and the department on notice that this is one facility in which, although it is in Victoria, I take a very keen personal interest. You can expect to hear a lot more from me if it is allowed to slip back to its former standards.

Aged care affects all of us in the community and, because it affects all of us, it is a cheap shot to talk about sledgehammers and nitpicking. I am sure I am not alone in having such care and concern for my grandmother. Every grandchild would share the same concern. The Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro, when discussing the issue of Plumpton Villa, said, ‘We are going to keep it under very close surveillance.’ Well, Senator Santoro—not just you, but me as well. We are both going to keep it under very close surveillance. We must acknowledge that not every facility has the relative of a member of parliament residing in it, but they do have the residents and their families.

One of the major concerns about the aged-care system into the future is that often for many people the argument is reduced to a question of the number of places available. It is not just the number of places—it is the quality of those places. It is important that we recognise that aged care in this country is the future. It is not just about the number of high-care or low-care places that are available. We know pretty well what is before us. Population projections and trends make it obvious that an increasing number of our fellow citizens are living longer. Therefore, it is possible to determine demand for years in advance. It is crucially important to plan for that trend. Australia is luckier than many other countries in that our ageing population can be balanced not only by an increase in our birth rate, which has been taking place in recent years, but also by a modification in our migration intake. However, the fact remains that people are living longer and more of them will require care in the future. To simply reduce the question of future needs to the number of places available overlooks an important factor—who will work in the facilities of the future? Only Labor is prepared to build this nation for the future, to ensure that our aged citizens can approach their retirement with security, equity, and decency for all.