Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022. At the start of my contribution, I foreshadow that I intend to move a second reading amendment to this bill, so I will now move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate is of the opinion that the Government has disrespected older Australians, their families and aged care providers due to their political restriction of the passage of similar legislation in the last Parliament when they were in Opposition".

The opposition will support this bill. The reason that we will support this bill is that we believe that the continuing work that was started by the previous coalition government is absolutely fundamental and generational in its reform of the aged-care system to ensure it meets the needs of older Australians, both now and into the future. And we're going to support this bill not just because it mirrors the royal commission response that we introduced last parliament but also because it delivers a very critical second stage of the reform package which was commenced by our government in response to the royal commission's final report.

In the introduction and debate on this particular bill that we had put forward in the last parliament, the provisions that were contained in the bill were absolutely essential in terms of the speedy response to the royal commission recommendations and the ability of the aged-care sector to move forward as quickly as possible to address many of the concerns that were raised by the royal commission. But at the time, Senator Rex Patrick, who is no longer in this place, moved an amendment in relation to the requirement for aged-care facilities to have nurses on site at all times. They moved an amendment that required nurses to be on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2022.

Now we know very, very clearly that access to nurses in all of our care settings has been extremely difficult. At the time, the now Prime Minister of Australia, when asked by a journalist, 'It does take a long time to train people as nurses,' Mr Albanese responded: 'Of course it does. But that is why you need planning and commitment to do it.' The journalist then said, 'But that sounds like a long-term thing, not something you can solve tomorrow, doesn't it?' Mr Albanese responded, 'You cannot find a nurse tomorrow. That is the truth.' Mr Albanese said this in February 2022, and yet in April 2022 he and those opposite voted to force aged-care facilities to have 24/7 nurses by 2022, against the recommendation of the royal commission. In doing so, they allowed the bill, which was so important to addressing the reforms in the royal commission report, to lapse, and so aged-care providers and older Australians were left in limbo for six months for political gain by those that are now in government.

It is absolutely disgusting to consider that Mr Albanese and Labor would have played politics with older Australians for the last six months by not facilitating the passage of this bill in the 46th Parliament when they could have—by delaying this critical legislation solely for the purpose of political gain. I can see no other reason, because they had absolutely no intention and never did—because they know they can't—to have 24/7 nurses in aged-care facilities by 2022. They then made a commitment sometime later to do it by 2023. We'll see when they bring their next bill into this place whether they're actually going to honour that commitment, because, sadly, I believe, and I think most Australians believe, that there is absolutely no chance that that particular provision will be able to be delivered for Australia.

The government's treatment of older Australians since the election has been nothing short of disappointing. There is the fact that we've ceased the provision of rapid antigen tests into aged-care facilities that are experiencing outbreaks, and then there was the embarrassing backflip we saw around the decision to extend ADF personnel support to our frontline workers in aged-care facilities, which they had intended to no longer continue.

Mr Albanese and the government promised, and continued to promise during the election campaign, more support for aged-care providers, and so far, I have to say, we haven't seen a lot for it apart from rhetorical flourish. But it's also disappointing that in the particular piece of legislation that is before us the government has chosen to remove the worker-screening regulations contained in the coalition's bill which was before this place in the 46th Parliament, because they were such important regulations and were, in consultation with the sector, supported by the sector. This is one of the few differences, I might say, between this bill and the coalition's legislation in the 46th Parliament, with the exclusion of the change of dates, which obviously had to occur because of the six-month delay in putting these really important reforms into this place.

Our worker-screening schedule responded to recommendation 77 of the royal commission and established an authority for nationally consistent pre-employment screening for aged-care workers. You would think that that would seem like a pretty sensible thing to do. Our legislation sought to establish a code of conduct which would have ensured that poor behaviour of approved providers, workers and governing persons was held to account. I'm glad the government has adopted our code of conduct and the subsequent amendments in this piece of legislation. But, as I said, it's disappointing that the government has capitulated—one would suggest probably to the unions—by removing our specific schedule on worker screening. It's absolutely essential that this government stands up to the unions and implements important policies to protect the rights of our aged-care sector workers and allow a nationally consistent database to be established for the care workers in ensuring the interests of all Australians and making sure older Australians have confidence in our aged-care sector.

Our plan was to have one database to simplify processes for employers, including aged-care providers, making it easier for NDIS carers, aged carers and veteran carers to move between their caring roles. This would have protected residents and allowed employers to know their employees are fit and proper to be caring for older Australians. Instead, Labor is delaying the commencement of this particular reform by excluding the schedule just to, I would imagine, fulfil an election commitment on what appears to be, on the face of it, a carbon copy of our regulations anyway. Put simply, this delays protections for older Australians. They are trying to redo what has already been done. We will be keeping a very close eye on further upcoming aged-care reforms that are going to be introduced by the Albanese government to ensure the legislation and regulations are introduced and implemented so that poor conduct in the sector is held to account and ultimately stopped.

Overall, this bill has nine schedules which directly relate to the Australian government's response to the royal commission. This bill, like the coalition's bill, replaces the outdated aged-care funding instrument from 1 October this year with the Australian National Aged Care Classification, or AN-ACC, residential aged-care funding model. This responds to the royal commission's recommendation 120 and represents a significant funding reform for residential aged care by completing the final step in the implementation of the model. Along with the introduction of the AN-ACC funding model, the bill permits the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care to publish information relating to the new star-rating system for all aged-care service providers. This will allow families and future aged-care residents to make an informed decision about which aged-care provider will be the best fit for their needs.

The bill will also extend the Serious Incident Response Scheme from residential home care to home care and flexible care delivered in home and community settings, in line with royal commission recommendation 100. Under the scheme, providers of in-home care services will be required to identify, record, manage and resolve all incidents that occur. This will provide further transparency and protection for aged care. Schedule 6 of the bill aims to provide consistent quality and safety protections for consumers and reduce regulatory burden for cross-sector providers and workers, in line with existing regulations in the disability sector. Additionally, the bill implements the second of a three-phase reform process established by our government to create a new financial and prudential monitoring compliance and intervention framework for the aged-care sector. Finally, the bill expands the functions of the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, responding to recommendations 6, 11, 115 and 139 of the royal commission.

The opposition is absolutely committed to supporting the health, the safety and the wellbeing of older Australians. That is why we made, whilst we were in government, a massive commitment to the implementation of the recommendations of the royal commission, with $19.1 billion committed by our government at the time to support the implementation of these recommendations. When in government, we were extremely disappointed that the opposition sought to play politics with this time-critical legislation that is before the chamber today. I think it shows extraordinary disrespect and the extent to which the Labor Party is prepared to go to get itself into office, and that it would use older Australians as a pawn in that particular play. So the opposition absolutely implores those opposite to continue our generational reform that we had put forward. We also implore those opposite to please put the interests of our aged-care sector and particularly our older Australians who rely so heavily on it at the centre of what you do going forward, because clearly you did not do that in the past. So make sure that everything you do in your endeavours to continue our reforms to improve our aged-care sector is done in a way that supports older Australians and not yourselves, and we will support you. We will support this bill but, in the process of doing so, we will seek to amend it to make sure that the interests of older Australians are fulfilled.