Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President Williams, what is Australia's fastest-growing industry? The answer would actually surprise many people—or maybe not, given that the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018 we are currently debating is the context. If you guessed aged care, you were right.

Let me give a few statistics that show just how large the aged-care industry is and how quickly it's projected to grow into the future. The aged-care industry in Australia has an annual turnover of more than $20 billion and it employs more than 350,000 workers. These staff deliver services to over one million elderly Australians through more than 2,000 service providers. The government's 2015 Intergenerational report predicts that the number of Australians aged 65 years and over will increase from 3.6 million to 8.9 million by 2055, and the Department of Health estimates that the aged-care sector will need to expand its workforce to almost a million people by 2050.

I can appreciate the significance of giving older Australians the support, care and dignity they deserve in their retirement. I think we've all got the approach that people should, without doubt, be able to retire and go into an aged-care facility, if they need to go into a facility, and to age with dignity and with grace. As a senator I have visited a number of residential aged-care facilities, including a recent visit to Bishop Davies Court in Kingston with the federal member for Franklin, Julie Collins. Of course, Ms Collins was visiting in two capacities—as the local federal member and as the shadow minister for ageing. I know that Ms Collins, the shadow minister, regularly visits aged-care facilities not just in her own electorate but throughout the country. I have to congratulate her on her hard work, her consultation with the sector and her strong advocacy for older Australians—

Senator Polley interjecting—

as I congratulate—don't jump the gun, Senator Polley!—my Tasmanian colleague Senator Helen Polley on assisting Julie Collins in that process. I've been to a number of aged-care facilities with Senator Polley as well over the past few years. They work together to make sure that older Australians get the best possible care that they deserve.

When I visit aged-care facilities, I'm always impressed by the professionalism of aged-care workers and their dedication to the care of their clients. It's a challenging and demanding job but one that can also be quite rewarding. They're not highly paid jobs, when you consider the work they have to do, but, no matter how dedicated, how caring and how professional aged-care workers are, they're labouring under an aged-care system that is suffering from the savage cuts of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government.

We don't expect any better under the prime ministership of Mr Morrison than what we've had under the previous prime ministers, Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull. And we haven't forgotten that Mr Morrison has been Treasurer for the past three years and has been the architect of some of the worst policies of this government, including its aged-care cuts. One of his first acts as Treasurer was to slash $500 million from aged care in the 2015 MYEFO. This was followed by a $1.2 billion cut in the 2016 budget. In total, Mr Morrison, as Treasurer, has ripped almost $2 billion from aged care.

Labor will be supporting the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill, but this bill will not address the government's abysmal record when it comes to providing for the care needs of older Australians. This is a point I'll return to later, but first let me turn to the provisions of the bill. Under the current quality framework there are eight different standards across three areas of care. These include four standards in residential aged care, two standards in home care and another two standards for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review. Should this bill pass, a new set of standards will apply to all aged-care providers from 1 July 2019. The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards.

I understand that the new standards are being developed in consultation with the aged-care sector and that the date they will come into effect was postponed to allow providers more time to prepare. A positive aspect of the new standards is that they shift the focus from provider processes to quality outcomes for consumers. While the result is positive, the government has been working on the standards since 2015 and it is unfortunate that it has taken so much time to get this legislation into parliament. Despite the amount of time the government has taken to progress the standards, it has taken until June this year for the shadow minister to have a briefing on the bill.

As well as the delay in getting this reform to parliament, Labor is concerned about the freedom of information provisions in the bill. The explanatory memorandum states:

The Bill also amends the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) to ensure that documents containing protected information acquired by the Quality Agency in the course of its functions are exempt from disclosure.

Very little detail is provided about what types of documents and information will be exempt. I understand that the shadow minister, Julie Collins, is seeking further clarification about this, but it does raise concerns about whether consumers will be able to get the information they need from the quality agency's investigations.

While not part of this bill but related to it, we welcome the government's announcement in April that it will agree to the Carnell-Paterson review recommendation to establish an Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. We are concerned, however, that the announcement seems to be very focused on the residential aged-care environment rather than giving consideration to the delivery of care across multiple settings. Delivery of aged care in the homes of older Australians is growing and those consumers deserve quality care and protection from failures, too. We look forward to hearing how the government will integrate home care into this newly established commission.

Whatever reforms the Morrison government delivers to improve the quality of aged care they will not come close to making up for the billions of dollars they have cut from the system while in government. Despite talking big on aged-care spending, the 2018 budget was a huge disappointment. On 6 May the health minister said in a doorstop interview that the 2018 budget would be, 'a good budget for health and for aged care in particular'. This was followed by leaked reports of a $100 billion investment in aged care and reports of an investment of new money in home care packages. Well, that was a cruel hoax, a cruel hoax on older Australians. The government overpromised and underdelivered once again. In fact, guess how much additional funding the government provided in net terms for aged care in the last federal budget? Was it millions? Was it thousands? No, it was a big fat zero. Every new initiative they announced in aged care was funded by cuts to other areas of the system. This follows a cut to aged-care funding in all four of this government's prior budgets. The severity of the cuts of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments over five years and their lack of action in restoring funding has left us with an aged-care system that is in crisis, with rapidly growing waiting lists.

In terms of home based care, we know that in December last year more than 100,000 Australians were on the waiting list for home care packages! The government provided only 14,000 home care packages in the last budget and that was funded by money taken from residential aged care—that's 14,000 places over the forward estimates or a measly 3,500 places a year to address a waiting list that grew by 20,000 in the last six months alone. The latest data released now shows that 108,000 Australians are waiting for home care places, and they include 88,000 Australians with high needs, many of whom are living with dementia. The waiting list is so long that people eligible for level 3 and 4 packages are waiting more than a year.

I know the impact this has on older Australians because I have people contacting my office saying they have been waiting for months for a package for their parent or grandparent. My office has heard from people who have put their lives on hold to provide the care needed by their loved ones, even though they've already been assessed as being eligible for a package. And those are the lucky ones, who have family to look after them. How on earth does any Australian in need of home based care live, if they cannot get an aged-care package? We're talking about help with basic tasks like showering, transport, gardening and home maintenance, shopping and preparing meals. Can you imagine trying to perform these basic tasks yourself when you can't get the help you need to do them? I can appreciate these people's frustration and their desperation. But, try as we might, there is little that I or my office can do to help them, because the funding and the packages just are not available. The problem will not be fixed until the government acts.

Many older Australians on waiting lists may not survive long enough to see their package delivered. The waiting list of 108,000 people, which has grown again, is only the March quarter data, which the government has been sitting on for months. Key data has been removed from the report, including a state and territory breakdown of the figures. We know, from previous data, that there were 2,474 Tasmanians waiting for a home care package. We are still waiting for the June quarter data, which was due for release at the end of August. The fact that the government once again is sitting on this data indicates that the picture is likely to be as bad as that painted by the March quarter data, or even worse. The government must release this data immediately. After all, for the government to be accountable for solving the problem, the Australian public need to know, and they deserve to know, the full extent of it. When the Minister for Aged Care, Mr Wyatt, was asked whether the home care packages announced would be enough to solve the crisis, he told Sky News: '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 list.' That interview was on 15 May, and we are still waiting—still waiting to hear what these so-called other interventions are or what the minister defines as a short period of time.

Turning to residential aged care, the situation is quite dire there as well. Independent analysis estimates a reduction of more than 20,000 residential care places over the next four years because of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government's cuts. Just let that sink in a bit—a reduction of 20,000 places at a time when our population is ageing and we're going to need greater, not less, access to aged care.

This is a government that can somehow find $80 billion to give away in tax cuts to big business, including $17 billion for the big banks, but can't find one extra dollar to invest in care for older Australians. As Senator Polley said earlier, it's atrocious.

While the government is sitting on its hands, there are several aged-care reports piling up on the minister's desk, waiting to be acted on. I could name, for example, the Applied Aged Care Solutions report, the Living Longer Living Better five-year review, and expert advice about how to fix the Aged Care Funding Instrument. In relation to the Living Longer Living Better review, the government is yet to respond to 20 of the 38 recommendations, despite having had the report since December last year. As Labor have said before, the Aged Care Funding Instrument is broken, and yet we've heard not a whimper from this government about how it proposes to fix it.

While we support this bill, it's not good enough for the government to just expect quality standards from the aged-care sector. It's not good enough for them to just assess those standards. The government needs to provide the aged-care sector with the funding it needs to actually deliver on those standards. You cannot separate aged-care funding from quality and standards—they go hand in hand.

Unlike those opposite, Labor in government has a proud record when it comes to delivering aged care. Our Living Longer, Living Better reforms were a significant long-term investment in quality aged care, a $3.7 billion package over five years. And those reforms had bipartisan support until, sadly, the current Liberal government started cutting billions from aged care. Labor's reforms included an integrated home support program, more home care packages, greater choice and control through consumer directed care, fairer means testing arrangements for home care packages, funding to help carers access respite and other support, funding for more residential care facilities to be built with a focus on services in regional, rural and remote areas, trialling of consumer directed care in residential aged care, strengthening the means testing for residential care by combining the current income and assets tests, establishing a new aged-care financing authority, improving the aged-care funding instrument, $1.2 billion to strengthen the aged-care workforce, funding to support consumers in research and funding to ensure better health connections through complex health care, multidisciplinary care and service innovation.

The Morrison government owe older Australians an apology for their abject failure to deliver aged care for those who need it. They should apologise for the growing waiting lists and the billions of dollars in budget cuts and for their undoing of Labor's significant investment and once bipartisan approach in government. Former Prime Minister Turnbull owes aged-care workers an apology for his criticism of their work and for telling them they should get a better job. What is it that Mr Turnbull thinks makes aged care not a good job? What better job does he suggest aged-care workers get? What kind of message is the former Prime Minister trying to send to the prospective recruits of the almost one million strong aged-care workforce that Australia will need in the few decades to come? What was he saying—'Don't bother applying because it's not a good job'? Should they work as investment bankers in the institutions that the Liberals want to give a $17 billion tax cut to?

I think this comment speaks volumes about this government's attitude towards aged care, and this attitude goes a long way towards explaining why there has been significant underinvestment in this sector. Mr Turnbull's definition of a better job may not be the same as that of aged-care workers. I am sure many of those workers believe that they have the best job, where they get the opportunity to support elderly Australians and to provide them with dignity, respect and quality of life. I'd be interested to hear what the current Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, has to say about his predecessor's comments and whether he stands by them. I have a message for senators opposite: aged-care workers don't need a better job. What they need is a better government. They need a government that not only stands up for aged-care workers but will also stand up for older Australians.

It is not just the government's cuts to aged care and this slight against aged-care workers that has shown the government's contempt for older Australians. This is also the government which has tried to axe the energy supplement for two million Australians, including 400,000 age pensioners. This is the government which is trying to force Australians to work until they're 70—the oldest retirement age in the developed world. A single, quality framework is a worthwhile reform, but if Australians want quality aged care they need a government that respects older Australians and is willing to invest in quality aged care. They won't get that from those opposite, because those opposite are not focused on older Australians. They're not focused on supporting the work of our dedicated aged-care work force. The only jobs they're concerned about are their own. Their only focus right now is on their own internal squabbles and personal ambitions. We know the circus isn't over. We know that. If Australians want a government that truly cares about older people, they're not going to get it from the current government or from the current Prime Minister, who as Treasurer was the architect of many of their cruel cuts to aged care. If they want a government that cares about older Australians then they need to elect one, and that should be a Shorten Labor government.