Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022. Firstly, I would like to point out the contrast between those opposite and the Albanese Labor government, because the contrast could not be clearer on the aged-care crisis. The former Liberal-National government neglected our aged-care system, and they did that for almost a decade. It was a system that was already in crisis before the pandemic started. It was a crisis that those opposite, when they were in government, chose to ignore until and unless it was politically convenient for them to finally address it. They claimed that their response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was a once-in-a-generation change to the sector. But actually it was a once-in-a-generation disgrace—a once-in-a-generation kick in the guts to dedicated aged-care workers, who deserve so much better, so much more, from their government.

We on the government benches know that good, secure jobs need to be at the heart of any response to the aged-care crisis. But the only thing at the heart of the response from those opposite when they were in government was delay. The only thing at the heart of their response when they were in government was neglect. Their bill to address some of the very critical areas of the aged-care system, which this bill also seeks to address, was introduced to the parliament in September 2021, but it wasn't until the final hours before the election that those opposite remembered it even existed. That was the level of priority that those opposite put on fixing the aged-care crisis. It wasn't until the final hours before the election that they remembered that their homework was due on the aged-care royal commission, and they didn't even get it done. What a disgrace. But what more did Australians expect from the previous government? When it comes to aged care, those opposite have never taken any responsibility. They've never acted with any sense of urgency.

This stands in stark contrast to the Albanese Labor government who, in our first week of the new 47th Parliament, are taking action that those opposite failed to take to protect the aged-care system. We have wasted absolutely no time when it comes to fixing the aged-care crisis. In our very first week in this new parliament we have introduced two bills to fix the crisis in this sector and deliver on our commitment to the Australian people that we will put the care, the dignity and respect back into the aged-care system.

This bill before the chamber implements a number of urgent reforms to funding, to quality and to safety in our aged-care sector. It introduces a new aged-care subsidy calculation as well as a code of conduct and banning order scheme. This bill extends the Serious Incident Response Scheme to aged care delivered in home settings and it addresses issues with the informed consent arrangements with respect to the use of restrictive practices in aged care. This bill strengthens the governance of approved providers and increases financial and prudential oversight. It enhances information-sharing across related sectors to enable proactive monitoring of cross-sector risks. All of this is about better protecting consumers and participants from harm.

This bill broadens the functions of the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority to include the provision of advice on healthcare and aged-care pricing and costing. This very important legislation that we are introducing in our first week as the Albanese government in the first week of the 47th Parliament will also improve transparency and accountability of providers by introducing a star rating system. That will be published for all residential aged-care services on My Aged Care by the end of 2022. That is a commitment that we made when we were in opposition, and we are getting on with it—hitting the ground running—and implementing it in government, because people want to see greater transparency and greater accountability amongst providers who are tasked with caring for our nation's most vulnerable elders and who receive federal funding to do that critical work. What the Australian people want to see is greater accountability and transparency when it comes to providers' actions with federal funding and when it comes to their actions in caring for our most vulnerable elders. As I said, information on the star rating system will be published for everyone to see by the end of 2022. That will allow senior Australians, their families and their carers to make informed decisions about their aged care. It will allow them to see how providers are performing and how they're using federal funds to provide quality care.

A number of the measures in this bill were included in the previous government's lapsed legislation. These are measures that we agreed with and that we recognised needed to be delivered. But, unlike the delayed and half-baked legislation that those opposite put forward that ignored the recommendations from the royal commission and ignored the real experts—our aged-care workers—our legislation will make serious improvements to the quality of care in the aged-care sector. Our legislation will ensure workers have their skills recognised and are given the opportunity to develop their careers. We'll do that by implementing a national registration scheme. That national registration scheme is part of the professionalisation of the aged-care workforce and it's a recommendation that I know aged-care workers around the country welcomed. It's a recommendation that was made in the royal commission's final report, recommendation 77. Lauren Hutchins from the Health Services Union told us that workers want this registration scheme. She said:

…we support a … registration scheme that actually invests in workers, in their professional development and in ongoing training, and that it's understood that it's an ongoing requirement of the job and acknowledged by the government as such.

Ms Hutchins went on to say that workers 'want their skills recognised and they want the opportunity to develop and participate in training.'

The Albanese government recognise the skill required to provide high-quality care in aged care, and with this bill we will deliver the ongoing training and professional development that these workers deserve, because we know that it is the aged-care workforce who are at the heart of our aged-care system and we know that there is no solution to the aged-care crisis without good, secure jobs for workers. You cannot provide quality aged-care services in this country without dealing with the workforce crisis that is at the core of our care crisis. Our aged-care workers have been telling us for far too long that they want to do a good job, that they value the residents who are in their care but that they just don't have the time that they need to care for the residents with the level of professionalism that they want.

We have a revolving door of aged-care workers in this country because the job is so undervalued. This is a job that needs to be professionalised. Aged-care workers need to be valued and recognised for their work. They need to be paid more. They need better training. This bill starts to recognise the value that we need to put on aged-care workers with this registration scheme. We know that there is no solution to the aged-care crisis without valuing the workforce, and our work here on fixing the aged-care crisis is just beginning this week.

In the last parliament, the Senate Select Committee on Job Security heard absolutely damning evidence of the prevalence and impact of insecure work in the aged-care sector. We heard that job insecurity and chronic low pay are the primary reasons that the sector is unable to meet its workforce and quality-of-care needs, and we heard that right from the coalface of the aged-care sector, from aged-care worker to aged-care worker who came and gave evidence about the conditions that they faced in aged care in Australia. We heard that over-reliance on insecure work practices has become an absolute business model in aged care. It's a business model which means that workers are left desperate, with little choice but to accept work across multiple employers to make ends meet. It's a business model which detrimentally impacts the quality of care for vulnerable people in the aged-care sector.

We heard from Ray Collins from the Health Workers Union, who told the committee at hearings in Victoria:

… it suits the business model to keep me as a worker lean and mean. You give me the minimal hours you can give me. You manipulate the hours and the workers to suit your dollar needs, not your care needs …

This is not how aged care should be run here in Australia today. Aged care should be run on the basis of good, secure jobs for the incredibly important aged-care workers who are the heart and the soul of our aged-care system. But insecure work is way too prevalent in aged care, and it takes the form of low pay and low-hour, part-time contracts. This is a system that provides flexibility for employers at the expense of the aged-care workforce. We heard too many stories from aged-care workers who are hired on part-time contracts with guaranteed hours as low as one or two hours per week, and any hours over that are just not guaranteed. Any extra hours that the workers are given don't attract overtime or penalty rates.

And then there's the issue of chronic low pay—low pay which, we heard, is a result of systematic undervaluation of care work as unskilled women's work. We heard from Professor Charlesworth, from RMIT University, who explained how gender discrimination has led to undervaluation and work insecurity in aged care:

This gendered nature of job insecurity is underpinned by a lack of value accorded to the work and the workers who perform it, which draws on a view of aged care as something women do for free and are therefore unskilled and is therefore not quite work.

This system of chronic low pay and low-hour contracts leaves workers desperate, in a constant limbo, not knowing how many hours they will work each week, not knowing whether they'll be able to afford to pay their bills and unable to properly plan their lives.

We also heard from workers across the sector about the impacts of insecure work on their health and on their families. Anu Singh, an aged-care worker and member of the United Workers Union, told the committee:

… apprehension, self-doubt, stress, unscheduled, instability. For me, these words altogether define the job insecurity that we actually go through all the time.

Taking jobs with low wages and a lack of stable hours is not a choice that workers are making, because it isn't a choice in aged care today. Insecure jobs are, all too often, all that's on offer for these workers. And without good, secure jobs, we aren't able to attract new workers to this critical sector.

There is a lot of work to do to fix the crisis in aged care. And what we know is that the workforce is front and centre in the aged-care crisis. One of the aspects of this legislation before the chamber is a very important registration system—recommendation 77 of the royal commission into aged care. It's one step that we can take to start aged-care workers on the journey to professionalisation. That's what the workers need and it's what the residents in their care need. This is a job that is providing the most important care in our society—care to our most vulnerable elders. What aged-care workers need is the support of their government, and that is absolutely what they will get from the Albanese Labor government.