Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, exactly: statistics, damned statistics. And you have got the providers saying, ‘Listen, we are just not viable,’ and the department is sitting there going, ‘Well, this survey says you are viable,’ and then arguing about who answered the survey, when they answered it and how many beds they have—how many have got a single-bed facility with an ensuite, how many have got a two-bed facility with an ensuite. It is hiding behind statistics to hide the fact that there is a crisis in aged care and we are just not paying attention to it. We are passing the parcel saying, ‘It’s your fault,’ but one day the music is going to stop and we will have a very significant aged-care crisis. We are heading that way now and we need to plan for the music not to stop. If we do not, at some stage we are going to have a very significant crisis on our hands. We are simply not going to have the beds and we are going to have even longer waiting lists than we have now. Constituents ring me up and say, for example, ‘I’ve been trying to find a place for my mother for nine months.’

Then, when they do find a place, there are other problems. For example, in Perth, some of the older people have been born and raised in Perth, in suburbs close to the city or in the inner city. But, like any city, there are some big distances within Perth, and people may not be able to find a place anywhere close to the city. They have to be miles away—miles away from their family and miles away from the community in which they have grown up or lived, and it is a completely different environment. But people are taking those beds because they cannot find a bed anywhere else, even though they do not like the location. I heard another story which is not from Perth, where the person concerned took a bed in an aged-care facility that they are not entirely happy with; it is not of the quality they hoped they would find for their parent, but they have had to take what they could get. In other words, people do not have choice, and there are long waiting lists so they are taking what they can get. The parent and their relatives are not necessarily happy. People have to travel long distances and those being cared for do not have the support that they need.

That is not the sign of a quality system in Australia. We need to provide high-quality care, where we can pay carers adequately for the work that they do. We need to attract high-quality carers and staff to these facilities. We need them to be places where people are happy to be and where relatives are happy for their family members to be. We are moving away from that in Australia—unfortunately, in some areas, at a very rapid pace. Bear in mind also that not only does a failing aged-care system impact on the people who are using those facilities; it also impacts on their families. If people cannot get access to good quality aged care and people are ageing in place much longer than is physically good for them, that places an added stress on family members and carers—on their ability to care for that person and to also care for their families. So this has ramifications for the whole of our community.

The sooner we acknowledge that we need to be doing something, the sooner we can start planning a system for the future, instead of continually chasing our tails and handing the parcel to whoever is the decision maker at the time. As I said, somebody is going to get left with a very big mess, because that is where aged care is heading in this country if we do not start doing something. We have already seen facilities close down. Just recently another facility closed down. In the very near future we are going to start to see residential aged-care operators handing back beds and closing down services because they simply cannot afford to run them anymore. That is a very poor state of affairs in Australia.

Unfortunately—and it absolutely depresses me to have to say so—we agree that much more dramatic action needs to be taken to address the significant challenges ahead in aged care. As Senator Cormann’s motion says, there is a very desperate need for the government to act and address the significant challenge ahead in aged care. It does not mean just putting more into policing facilities. It does not mean just putting more into quality control— (Time expired)