Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader (Tasmania)) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to outline Labor's position on the government's Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018. Labor supports this bill. However, in saying that, I would like to reiterate a number of concerns I have raised and that my colleague the shadow minister for ageing has in fact raised in the other place. The bill amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 to make provision for a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. Currently, there are standards that cover three different areas of care. They include four standards for residential aged care, two standards for home care and two standards for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review. The new single set of standards will apply across all areas of care and will be effective from 1 July 2019. This is an amended date as there were concerns from the sector that the original start date of 1 July 2018 would give stakeholders and providers little time to do the necessary preparatory work. The new standards will focus on quality outcomes for consumers rather than providers and processes and have been driven by the sector and other stakeholders since 2015.

As mentioned earlier, Labor has a number of concerns. First is the length of time it has taken for the government to introduce legislation into the parliament. This was a 2015-16 budget measure. Secondly, the explanatory memorandum outlines that the bill amends the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to ensure that documents containing protected information acquired by the quality agency in the course of its functions are exempt from disclosure. As the shadow minister has already highlighted in the other place, Labor is concerned that the consumer may suffer as a result of this FOI amendment. We don't want to see important information being kept from consumers, so that's why Labor will closely monitor this change.

I would also like to raise the review of the National Aged Care Quality Regulatory Processes, also known as the Carnell-Paterson review. The report of this review was handed to the government on 20 October last year. The review made 10 recommendations, one of which was to establish an independent aged-care quality and safety commission. The government adopted this recommendation back in April last year and Labor understand the legislation for this will be introduced into parliament for debate soon. I would also like to acknowledge that the minister offered a briefing to Labor on this legislation. Of course, Labor welcome this announcement, but we are concerned the government has not given consideration to the delivery of care across multiple settings.

Before I go further, I want to put on the record our thanks to the nurses, carers, doctors and allied health professionals who work hard to deliver care to older Australians each and every day. Labor recognises that each day around the country the majority of older Australians are treated with care and respect at residential aged-care homes. I've visited so many right around this country and to see the work that's done on a daily basis, as I said, with care and respect is something that we can be proud of—although there are some that don't meet those standards.

What hasn't been at the forefront of any discussions are the protections for people who choose to age at home. With a growing number of older Australians choosing to age in their own homes those protections should be stronger—whether the care is being delivered in residential aged-care homes or in the family home. The minister's announcement seemed to be very focused at those providers delivering care in a residential aged-care environment. The shadow minister for ageing has written to the minister on this very issue, and there has been a commitment given by the department that the government will ensure the same quality care that is delivered in residential aged-care homes is also provided in the homes of those who choose to receive care as part of their home care package or the Commonwealth Home Support Program. With this new agency not due to begin until 1 July 2019, the government has much work to do to ensure it gets this commission right.

I want to spend a little time on the government's 2018-19 budget measures. You only have to look at the government's most recent budget to understand that those opposite have not put the best interests of older Australians front and centre. Why do we know this? Because there was not one new extra dollar for Australia's aged-care system in this year's budget—not one. What the government has done is pretend to give new money to aged care. But the reality is that there aren't any additional funds for the aged-care sector. This is after the Abbott and Turnbull governments cut aged-care funding by billions of dollars over the last five years. Collectively, these governments, in every budget, have cut aged-care funding. We have seen funding cuts to the Aged Care Funding Instrument and funding cuts to residential aged care. Billions of dollars are now no longer flowing to support older Australians in residential care.

It is now clear that the build-up to the budget and the government's rhetoric around aged care and home care did not match up with what was finally announced. It was overpromised and underdelivered. In the lead-up to this year's budget, we saw the government begin to frame its measures around aged care, particularly the support it would give to older Australians choosing to age in their own homes. Even the health minister, Minister Hunt, said on 6 May that this would be a good budget for aged care. He said: 'It's going to be a very good budget for health and for aged care in particular.' That was at a doorstop on 5 May this year. There were also big figures leaked to the media: '$100 billion', the government led with. On closer inspection of the $100 billion, it also became evident that this was not an increase of funding across the forward estimates. No new money here. The $100 billion was already in the forward estimates. And the minister, back in April 2016, confirmed this publicly.

Closer to the budget there were more reports that the government would be investing 'new money' into the home care packages. But this never happened. It was all just political spin. This mirage made by the government was something it could hide behind—because, quite frankly, the three ministers responsible for aged care since 2013 have done nothing over the past five years. What the government did in its budget was to simply cut money from residential aged care to pay for the home care packages. So after all the rhetoric by the then Treasurer and now Prime Minister, and the other minister, it turns out that there is in fact no new money at all in the budget for the funding of in-home care and residential aged care. The now Prime Minister was in charge of the budgets that were slashed under his watch, and that funding was taken away from this important sector.

In his first year as Treasurer, he tried to rip almost $2 billion from the care of older Australians. One of his first acts as Treasurer was to slash almost $500 million from aged-care funding in the 2015 MYEFO. He followed this with an even bigger cut of $1.2 billion from aged-care funding in the 2016 budget. Even as the waiting list for home care packages blew out to more than 108,000 Australians, his latest budget did not deliver one new dollar for funding to aged care. For all the claims of a baby boomer budget, the now Prime Minister again cut funding from residential aged care to try and fix the growing crisis in home care the Liberals created. Clearly, he and the Liberals cannot be trusted to ensure older Australians get the aged-care services they need. They used smoke and mirrors to pretend there was a plethora of money being allocated to aged care. The government overreached, under-delivered and let down our most vulnerable Australians.

As I mentioned earlier, this government has a proven track record of cutting funding and underinvesting in aged care. Over the past five years, the Abbott-Turnbull government has slashed billions of dollars from aged care and is solely responsible for the growing list that exists for in-home care. The Prime Minister and minister can no longer put their heads in the sand thinking that there is nothing more to do in aged care. It is extremely disappointing the government did not use its budgets to invest in the care that older Australians deserve. Older Australians need the government to act.

That brings me to a really urgent issue: the home care package waiting list. The only thing this government did before the budget, and we welcomed this, was create an additional 6,000 level 3 and 4 home care packages—no new funding, just a change of ratio. These packages were allocated by the end of December 2017. But then the government decided to be too clever by half. It reused the 6,000 home care package figure to bolster its budget announcement. The government promoted 20,000 additional packages in the lead-up to the budget, but what it had done was count the 6,000 already in the system. So, really, the announcement is only 14,000 home care packages. Funding just 14,000 new home care aged packages over four years was nothing but a cruel hoax. Three thousand five hundred places a year isn't even enough to keep pace with demand. It's particularly cruel after promising older Australians it would address the waiting list.

Even the Minister for Aged Care was forced to admit what we already knew: the home care packages announced in the May budget won't come close to solving Australia's aged-care crisis. Responding to whether or not the new home care packages announced in the budget would be enough to stave off the crisis, the minister could only say that the government would have to consider new measures: 'It will be the status quo for a short period of time, and then we will start to look at a range of other interventions that will reduce that wait list.' That's the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, on Sky News on 15 May this year. In the meantime, we waited more than three months for the minister to release the data for the March 2017 quarter. Why did he delay releasing this data? The waiting list has increased. There are now more than 108,000 older Australians waiting for a home care package. Of great concern is that more than 53,000 older Australians have no home care package at all. What is this government doing?

There are other questions that I would like to put to those opposite. How many of the 14,000 home care packages included in the budget have been allocated? Are any of the 14,000 home care packages from the budget already allocated, therefore distorting this recent release of quarterly data? When will the minister be releasing the June quarter data due, as it's due at the end of this month? As you can see, this government is inept when it comes to driving aged-care reform and funding residential and home care services. The shadow minister for ageing and Labor members have been pressing the government to fix the home care package waiting list for over a year. The time to fix this crisis is now. The government created the aged-care crisis, it has ignored the aged-care crisis and its budget failed to fix the aged-care crisis. The government needs to apologise for overpromising, underdelivering and failing older Australians yet again.

In conclusion, I really do want to emphasise that Labor will be monitoring how the government drives the necessary work to deliver on this quality framework. Given this government hasn't had a good track record when it comes to reforming aged care, we are today putting them on notice that they must make these new standards work. We want to see some action when it comes to introducing this quality framework. We also want to see a commitment from the government to do the necessary work to deliver on their announcement to establish an independent aged care quality and safety commission. I would also like to take this opportunity to express our continued commitment to working with the government and the aged-care sector to ensure older Australians can age safely and happily whether it is in a residential home or their own home.