Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Serious Incident Response Scheme and Other Measures) Bill 2020. This legislation is long overdue. It's implementing some of the key recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission's report into elder abuse, which was tabled in 2017, so it's been almost four years before we've seen the Liberal government finally starting to act. In the report the Australian Law Reform Commission said that its 43 recommendations were timely, and its cornerstone recommendation was a national plan to develop and combat elder abuse.

To reinforce the need for a Serious Incident Response Scheme, a separate review—again, commissioned by those sitting opposite—followed the Oakden nursing home tragedy and also recommended introducing the scheme in 2017. How can we trust that this government will act upon the recommendations of their royal commission into aged care, whose report is expected to be handed down this month, if they've taken four long years to respond to elder abuse? That is four long years of abuse of older Australians. The Liberal government then waited two years and commissioned KPMG to undertake a prevalence study of serious incident report schemes, and the findings of that report were handed down by the government in November 2019 but not made public until June 2020. This report revealed that there were more than 50,000 cases of assault and abuse in aged care across the country that were going unreported each year. They sat on this information for months and let tens of thousands of vulnerable people be subject to undue harm before they started to do anything about it. Under this government, reported assaults in residential aged care have gone up every year, reaching 5,233 in 2018-19. That's more than 100 a week—100 of some of the most vulnerable members of our society were assaulted each day and every week.

A research paper from the aged care royal commission has revealed the shocking rates of elder abuse in aged-care homes under the Morrison government. It's estimated that almost 40 per cent of people living in Australian aged-care homes experience elder abuse in the form of neglect, emotional abuse or physical abuse, but this doesn't include financial, social and sexual abuse. It has found that the prevalence of neglect is over 30 per cent. How shameful is that! These are statistics that we should not be comfortable with. They confirm just how broken the aged-care system is under the Morrison government. We have had almost eight years of this government, and that's the shameful neglect of the aged-care system under the watch of Scott Morrison.

Let's go back to the bill. It amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 to introduce a Serious Incident Response Scheme for residential aged care and flexible care delivered in a residential aged-care setting. Labor has been calling for the implementation of this scheme since both reports were released in 2017. We again called out the government's inaction on the development of a scheme on the eve of Elder Abuse Awareness Day last year. We will support this legislation, but we fear it may be insufficient in its current form. The bill will require approved providers to manage incidents and take responsible steps to prevent incidents, including through implementing and maintaining effective organisation-wide governance systems for management and reporting of incidents of abuse and neglect.

The bill will also require approved providers of residential care and flexible care delivered in a residential aged-care setting to report all serious incidents to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. A wider range of incidents will also now be reportable under these amendments. Currently, aged-care facilities only need to report unlawful sexual contact and unreasonable use of force. They don't have to report other types of harm or assaults by elderly residents with dementia or mental illness. Under the amendments, psychological or emotional abuse, unexpected death, stealing or financial coercion by a staff member, neglect, inappropriate physical or chemical restraint, and unexplained absence from care will be reportable. The government's watchdog will also be given additional powers under the amendments to punish providers for failing to keep residents safe. Some aged-care experts are critical of the government's scheme, fearing it will be insufficient in its current form. Counsel assisting's final submissions to the commissioners recommended that the government should, in developing a new and expanded serious incident reporting scheme, ensure that it also includes all serious incidents, including those that occur in in-home care. As more and more Australians are electing to stay home as long as possible, it's important that they too are provided with protection by this scheme. In its current form, they are not. Again, the government is not only failing to deliver home-care packages to older Australians in their own home but also failing to protect them.

Additionally, this scheme does not have the proactive mechanisms to prevent elder abuse. Whilst reacting to elder abuse when it occurs is an important step, this scheme must do more to prevent it from happening in the first place. There needs to be reform relating to the suitability of people working in aged care by enhancing employment screening processes and ensuring that staff are subject to a national code of conduct. I have been calling for that, as has Labor, for such a long time. There should be regulations governing the use of restrictive practices and there should be national guidelines in place for the treatment of care recipients. Not only are older Australians more vulnerable because of their age, but they face other factors, such as increased rates of isolation, disability and cognitive impairment, that make them more vulnerable to abuse.

Elder abuse undermines dignity and autonomy. Abuse and living with fear can inhibit a person's ability to make choices about their own lives to pursue what they value. We must protect older Australians from abuse so that they can support themselves to live good, dignified lives. They should not be subject to abuse. We owe it to them to ensure that they are protected, whether they are still living at home or whether they are residing in residential aged-care homes. Australians have rights which should not diminish with age. We all have a right to a dignified existence, free from exploitation, violence and abuse.

The federal government has a responsibility. They are responsible for the laws and the framework in a legal sense and to ensure that they're put in place to protect older Australians. For far too long older Australians have been left out, and the Morrison government have no excuse, as they have commissioned inquiry after inquiry into the shortcomings of the aged-care sector. We on this side of the Senate chamber have known, just like those opposite—who have been responsible for aged care as ministers—that minister after minister has called for and sought reports into the aged-care sector. They have been well aware of the issues that this sector has faced. They know that there is an issue around abuse in aged care. They know there are issues around the workforce and the lack of workers in this sector. They know that the workers in aged care are underpaid. They know that the majority of workers in this sector do a very, very good job. But they know the failings of this sector and they have failed to act. Then what they have been doing in recent years is putting everything on hold until the royal commission brings down its final report. We never had to wait to have a royal commission to know the failings that are happening on a day-to-day basis in the aged-care sector, but those on the government benches have been very happy to just put their hair down and pretend that they didn't know what was going on.

This bill goes some way to ensuring that older Australians are going to be protected when they live in residential aged care, but the government still haven't protected those who are still living at home. Let's be quite frank about this. It is far cheaper for the government to support people living in their own home for longer rather than going into the residential home sector. But those on the government benches for the last eight years have failed to deliver the quality of care that is needed to ensure that those living at home are going to be safe and can have a dignified life and receive the home care packages that they need—not a level 1 when they've been assessed to have a level 4 package. No more excuses, Mr Morrison. It's time you delivered.

Those opposite have well and truly dropped the ball when it comes to aged care and our vulnerable older Australians, and older Australians have suffered as a result of that. As we know, tens of thousands of older Australians have died waiting for the level of home care that they had been assessed for but that this government failed to deliver. We know the final report into aged-care will be handed down this month, but I want to put on the record once again that we have never had to wait for the royal commission to bring down either its interim report or the final report. We know of the neglect.

I want to concur with the comments of Senator Keneally here today. She went back and again painted the picture of maggots and of the abuse and neglect that older Australians have had to endure with an undignified existence in residential care.

I also concur with many of the comments that Senator Siewert has made today in her speech. Both of us have been on many inquiries. We were on the Oakden inquiry, in particular, and inquiry after inquiry looking into other aged-care issues. We know the neglect. We are embarrassed about the neglect in aged care, just as Australians should be. It is a shame and it is a blight on the Morrison government, and in particular on Mr Morrison himself who, before the last election, said he was going to make aged care a national priority. If this is what he calls a national priority under his watch, God help us if he wasn't interested in aged care! God help us, and God help those older Australians who are being neglected and those families who have lost their loved ones. Minister after minister has neglected older Australians in this country.

I want to put on record my thanks to Julie Collins, the former shadow minister for aged care and the member for Franklin in Tasmania, in my home state, who knew about and understood these issues. She fought, along with myself, Shayne Newman and Mark Butler, to give older Australians the dignified and high-quality care that they deserve. I also want to put on record my appreciation for Clare O'Neil, as the new shadow minister for aged services. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with Labor's team to hold this government to account, to ensure older Australians get the care that they need and they deserve to have a dignified life, whether they're in a residential homecare sector or whether they're living at home with their homecare packages that they deserve. I know that the senators on this side will never ever give up fighting for the dignity that older Australians deserve in this country, each and every day.