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

I indicate the Greens will be supporting these amendments. They're not very prescriptive. They also don't adopt some of the more intense set ratios. We have indicated that we do think, broadly, ratios need to be a part of the process because of the problems that we've seen, but we don't want them to be too prescriptive. We want a process for being able to establish them, depending on the situation and the acuity of residents, the types of residents we're talking about, the ratio of allied nurses to people with professional qualifications and, of course, care workers, who provide so much of the care that's essential when you think about the fact that this is a person's home. It is not a hospital; it is a person's home. And care workers—who will, in fact, be visiting this place again on Wednesday—play an absolutely essential role in the provision of care. I'm so sick of hearing from both nurses and care workers that there are just not enough staff on the floor to provide the medical attention that's needed but also the personal care.

I've also seen some very excellent examples of residential aged-care facilities where they have excellent staff-resident ratios and the care provided is excellent. So we support the concept of ratios, but we're not endorsing any particular ratio at this stage. We also recognise that you have to be careful that it's not too prescriptive because circumstances are different in many of the residences. As I said, we're talking about a person's home. We're also talking about their care, and we need to make sure that we've got that balance right. So we will be supporting these amendments to register our support for the concept of ratios, bearing in mind that we don't think that they should be too prescriptive and restrict the ability to make sure we have that balance of care and staff present in the home right.

I chaired the workforce inquiry, as Senator Polley just articulated. I'm deeply disappointed that we haven't seen an outcome from the task force to date. I think that we were pretty clear in that report that it's absolutely essential that we get on top of that workforce issue because we have an ageing population. We have people going into residential care who are older and frailer. They're staying in homes longer, which is really strongly supported by the community. So it is really important that we get these workforce issues dealt with now.

Having been involved in the discussions over Living Longer Living Better, I was similarly disappointed when the previous workforce arrangements were abolished by the incoming government. There were some amendments made and some concessions made when that was being negotiated at the time. I think that we've unfortunately stagnated, despite having the task force. I acknowledge that action was taken to get that task force in place, but basically progress on a lot of the workforce issues has stalled and it is absolutely essential that we have a skilled workforce of personal care providers, allied health professionals, RNs and ENs on the floor of these places. But it is also absolutely essential that we have a plan in place. Otherwise, we will not be able to provide the care that is needed for our ageing population because we just won't have the workforce ready.