Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Can I thank colleagues for their contributions in this debate on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 and the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges (Amendment) Bill 2014. As has been canvassed, the two bills that are before us seek to introduce several minor amendments to aged-care and health related legislation.

One measure makes consequential amendments to reflect the 2014 budget measure to repurpose the aged-care workforce supplement, and I just want to talk about this one very briefly. This is a change which has already happened. It was a 2014 budget measure that gave effect to an election commitment which was very clearly documented in the coalition's pre-election aged-care policy. The reason for the election commitment which was given effect to in the 2014 budget was fairly straightforward. The workforce supplement was essentially a mechanism to achieve an industrial objective. The view that the coalition took and has since implemented is that aged-care providers are in the best position to know and to understand how to run their businesses, which is why we said we would repurpose the money for the aged-care workforce supplement—$1.1 billion—into the general pool of aged-care funding. That is a decision that has already been taken and given effect to. What this piece of legislation seeks to do, among other things, is to remove the workforce supplement from the list of primary supplements that may be provided by the subsidy principles under the act. So that is essentially just a bit of housekeeping. This is not giving the effect to the election commitment. That has already happened. This is essentially a bit of legislative tidying up. I appreciate that those opposite tend to view most portfolio areas as another platform by which to give effect to their industrial agenda. I guess they are usually fairly straightforward about that. I have spoken to Senator Siewert, and we will agree to disagree on this particular point—this particular minor technical amendment—but I thought that the context was important.

A second measure in the bill will support the implementation of stage 2 of the Aged Care Gateway, which, for those colleagues who might not be familiar with it, is an online information portal and contact centre. These two bills will also make amendments to allow for the recovery of past home care costs where the care recipient receives a compensation payment, as is currently possible in relation to residential care costs. So this is essentially bringing that into line and is fairly similar to the sort of approach that is taken with the NDIS.

Lastly, there are some minor clarifying technical amendments to aged-care legislation to remove redundant provisions and ensure that the legislation operates as intended. I do not want to delay the chamber by diverting for a moment into an area which is not directly touched upon by this legislation, but I do so because the contributions of colleagues opposite did vary fairly widely from the legislation that is before us. Opposition senators spoke at length about the cessation of the dementia and severe behaviour supplement. I think, Mr Acting Deputy President Dastyari—knowing that you are someone who pays close attention to the budget and to the finances of the nation—that you will be interested to know that the dementia and severe behaviour supplement introduced by the previous government, which operated for one year, had a budget allocation of $11.7 million but ended up coming in at $110 million. That was because the previous government assumed that there would be 2,000 aged-care residents who would trigger eligibility for providers for the dementia and severe behaviour supplement; it ended up being 29,000 aged-care residents who triggered eligibility for providers, and over the forward estimates, rather than the $52 million allocated by the previous government, the supplement was going to cost $780 million. Over the following 10 years, operating within the budget envisaged by those opposite, the supplement was in fact going to cost $1.5 billion. I did look to see whether it was possible to recast the supplement, but I ended up reaching the conclusion that it was not possible to salvage the supplement in its current form. No government, given a situation where a badly designed program by a previous government was intended to cost $11.7 million in its first year of operation but actually cost $110 million, can stand by and let that situation continue. It is curious that, somehow, bad policy designed by the previous government for the dementia and severe behaviour supplement is actually the fault of this government. That is a perverse approach. Anyway, this government took the responsible approach, and that was to conclude the supplement.

Senator Polley interjecting—

Mr Acting Deputy President, I am hearing strange noises emanating from across the chamber.