Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with pleasure to make a contribution to the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022—as has been indicated by other speakers in the chamber, an important piece of legislation. As has been noted on a number of occasions, it is essentially the same legislation that came to this chamber prior to the election, and, as Senator Rice quite rightly pointed out, was amended in this place—but with one amendment, which the then government didn't feel was responsible, which was an amendment moved by Senator Patrick for immediate 24/7 nurses in aged care. The reason we didn't accept that recommendation was it wasn't feasible and it wasn't responsible—not that we didn't support the concept of 24/7 nurses in aged care; we said that we did in our response to the royal commission. But it wasn't possible to make that occur straightaway.

That's why this legislation didn't complete in the last parliament. It should have completed in the last parliament, and the effect of the politics that was played by the previous opposition, the now government, is that important reforms to the aged-care sector have been delayed. That is the effect of the actions of the now government with respect to this legislation. It is important legislation. Aged-care providers have been delayed in having legislated certainty with respect to AN-ACC. AN-ACC is a game changer with respect to the funding of the aged-care sector in this country. It is the mechanism by which the resources can and will be made available to ensure, as we all want, that senior Australians can be cared for with respect, care and dignity—which is the title of the final report of the royal commission.

Many speakers have indicated the various elements of the bill, so I'm not going to concentrate on them all. But there are a couple of things that I think are extremely important, so I will focus on those. There are nine schedules in the legislation, and there was one schedule that was removed from the previous bill, which went to workforce screening and registration. I find it really difficult to accept and understand why that schedule was removed. The design of the workforce registration program was to make it as easy as possible, to prevent duplication, to make it as cost-effective as possible and to have a workforce registration scheme that worked across the entire care sector. The workforce registration scheme that the previous government wanted to put in place was the one that was being used for NDIS. It's already there. Why do we need to design a new workforce registration scheme? It's already being used across the country for workers in the NDIS. I go to Family Based Care in Burnie. They are providers of home care, they are providers of the NDIS and they are providers of veterans' care. Why should they have more than one workforce registration scheme within their business? They incur additional cost, and, as the principal funders of aged care in this country, the taxpayers bear that additional cost.

So, when the government's looking at their systems and where they might find efficiencies in the way that they operate, perhaps they could look at what the previous government was trying to achieve with the workforce registration program. It's something that's already there. Why do we need to build a new one? We don't. In fact, it would provide efficiency in the operation of our aged-care sector. There are about 4,000 senior Australians in residential aged care who qualify for NDIS. Those providers that have those residents who qualify for NDIS already have to have their workforce registered under the NDIS workforce registration scheme. Why should they have two? Why should we impose that cost—that duplication of effort and administration—on the Australian taxpayer by designing another one? Why would we do that? It doesn't make sense. The government should reintroduce the previous provisions that we had in this bill to ensure efficiency and ease of operation of business, so that this sector—the whole care sector—can operate so much more efficiently and cost-effectively in the interests of senior Australians, but, more importantly, in the interests of the Australian community, who are paying for this.

One of the new measures in the bill is the star rating system. That was slated to occur within the same time frame in the legislation, so I welcome the inclusion of the star rating system within this legislation. It was set to occur anyway, so it should happen. This does progress the legislation.

The other change that's been made, and this one genuinely concerns me, is in relation to governance. Schedule 5 introduces new government responsibilities for approved providers regarding membership of their governing bodies and the establishment of new advisory bodies on measures to improve leadership and culture. This is something that's not often talked about with respect to reform of the aged-care sector, but it is one of the most important things. If the corporate governance of an organisation isn't right, if the culture within an organisation isn't right, that has a direct impact on the quality of care that's being provided. We learnt some very, very hard lessons over the last two or three years through COVID, but can I say to you quite honestly and earnestly: one of the major lessons we learnt was that, if the clinical leadership and the corporate governance in an aged-care service were not good, the outcomes with respect to managing a COVID outbreak and managing the quality of care were bad for residents. So the element of this particular measure that concerns me the most is the exemption that has been put into this schedule for all Aboriginal community controlled health organisations. My question is: 'Why do the residents of an ACCHO deserve a lower level of corporate governance than every other Australian in aged care in this country?' It is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that this government is proposing to impose a lower level of corporate governance on ACCHOs than they will impose on every other aged-care provider.

We heard in this place yesterday two powerful speeches from two proud Indigenous Australians, both of whom care for their communities. I think it was a historic day. I think it was probably the first time that we've seen two first speeches from two proud First Nations women—a historic day. Yet, the next day, this government takes backwards the protection of Indigenous Australians in residential aged care by providing an exemption on governance.