Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak yet again on a very important issue, and that is the state of the aged-care sector in this country. It is very sad that the government has shown no leadership on this very vital area of policy and government responsibility. Ageing and aged care is something that will affect every family and, ultimately, if we are lucky enough, every one of us. We are all ageing.

I want to talk about a couple of places I visited last week. I went to Gertrude Abbott Aged Care and the Sister Anne Court home in Surry Hills in New South Wales. Both of those homes accommodate and care for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and they do a sterling job. To witness a group of men and women who are living with dementia to various stages interacting in their art class with their wonderful art teacher and to see the quality of their work was really, truly inspiring. I also visited Hammondville in Sydney's southwest. It is another organisation that cares for some of the most vulnerable members of our community, particularly those living with dementia.

The staff who are working in these homes are extraordinary people. They really are extraordinary people. But this government has shown no leadership whatsoever when it comes to ensuring that we have the best carers there can possibly be and the highly skilled people who we need to be looking after those people who we love and are dear to us. This government has failed at every turn to show any leadership. It gives me no joy to come into this place and talk about the lack of leadership in aged care and the lack of leadership from the minister who has responsibility for it. Minister Ley has let the country down. She is letting down the people who built this country by not demonstrating any interest at all.

We have said to both the minister and to the government in general that we want to work with them to support the aged-care sector. It is a sector that has enormous opportunities. The jobs growth of the future is in fact in aged care. There are enormous opportunities. But we have to ensure that we have the best trained people looking after our loved ones. That does not necessarily mean that those people who are acting as personal carers will want to go on and get a nursing degree or go into management. We need to have excellent people who will be the role models and the mentors for those coming into the sector and caring for those who are most vulnerable. As this government has failed to acknowledge, we need to have the government, the opposition, the crossbench, the sector, the community, residents and consumers all contributing to the future direction of aged care in this country.

We did the heavy lifting when we were in government. I have spoken about this many times. It was Mark Butler and others after him who developed the Living Longer Living Better framework. I have to remind people in this chamber that it was the Howard government that failed dismally after 11 years to put into place any structure to look at the future of aged care. We did that.

I am calling on the government to come to us. Let's sit down and work together to resolve some of these challenges that are confronting the sector around workforce. I am asking the government: 'Where is your leadership? Where is your policy development? Why aren't you concerned? Why aren't you being more proactive? Why are you leaving it to the sector? What is the ideal model for caring for those people who are ageing, particularly those who are living with dementia? What is the model?'

I speak to carers and providers around the country and I really enjoy hearing from them firsthand of their experiences caring for people living with dementia. What we need to be asking is: what is the best way to care for those people with dementia? Who is going to pay the cost of caring for our ageing community? What skills and what training do we need to put in place to ensure that we have the most skilled people working in this sector?

They are the most vulnerable people in our community. We talk about child care and we have raised the expectations of the community about those working in the early education of our young people. Our older Australians deserve nothing less—it would give me no greater joy than to come in here and say that the minister had responded to my plea to come to the table and work together. I regretfully believe that this minister will go down in history—(Time expired)