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

I rise to make a contribution to the debate on the legislation before us, the Aged Care Bill 2024 and the Aged Care Legislation Amendment Bill 2024. These are important pieces of legislation, and I acknowledge the commentary from the chair of the community affairs committee in relation to that. But, if this is such important legislation—if it is so important, as the government tell us—why have they left it so late in the term to legislate? Why have they allowed the program of the response to the royal commission put in place by the previous government to slip by so much? Why are we here at quarter to 12, just before an election, urgently needing to pass a piece of legislation that should have been done over a year ago? Why have they allowed that to happen? Why have they allowed the waiting time for home-care packages to slip from 30 to 90 days, where it was under the funding provided by the previous government, out to 15 months? I heard Senator David Pocock talking about waiting times. Why is their ambition for delivery of a home-care package out to 90 days? The coalition got the time down to 30 to 90 days for a home-care package at any level and to fewer than 30 days for a high-needs package. Yet the government, in this legislation, is saying that the acceptable standard for receiving a home-care package is 90 days, and Senator Pocock thinks that's okay. I don't, and neither do people receiving care.

It's worth noting that this government, the Labor Party, still has not responded in full to the royal commission. The document that they're working off is the response tabled by the Morrison government in the budget of 2021 in its response to the royal commission. It's a bit cute, I have to say, to listen to members of the Labor Party—who still haven't responded formally to the 148 recommendations of that royal commission—taking credit for decisions made by the previous government. They're all important reforms. It's good that they're happening: the star rating, standards on food, the new funding model—the AN-ACC system—where providers all knew their funding regime before the 2022 election came to pass; and financial reporting. These were all things that were planned decisions made under the previous government. It's good that they're in place. These are important reforms in response to the royal commission.

But we saw, before the last election, the politics of aged care played by Labor, when they opposed pieces of legislation that were proposed by the coalition and then brought them back immediately after the election in mostly the same form to pass them and claim credit for them. That's fine, but, as part of that process, for example, they reduced the standards of clinical care required in aged-care facilities for Indigenous Australians. Why do Indigenous Australians deserve a lesser standard of clinical oversight than everybody else? I would argue that they don't, but that's what this government did. They excluded Indigenous-run aged-care facilities from the clinical governance and the governance oversight required of every other provider in the country. It is shameful.

It is shameful that they let the waiting time for home-care packages slip out to 15 months. The reform of the home-care system was one of the key elements of the royal commission report—'a cruel lottery', they called it. The Prime Minister talked before the election about 'returning the care to aged care'. The reality is that all he has done is delay the process and return the waiting lists. It is shameful that people are now waiting 15 months for a home-care package when all of the investment and all of the hard work done by the sector and the previous government had got the waiting time down from 90 to 30 days. That was a commitment that we made very early in the previous parliamentary term.

There are some other catches within this legislation that haven't been talked about. The government talks about a lifetime cap on expenditure. It has been referred to by a number of people, but the thing that this legislation does is discriminate against people on lower incomes. If you can find the money to pay a RAD—a deposit for your home, which is a lot of money; potentially, up to a million dollars—that money is protected by the system, but, if you pay a DAP, a daily accommodation price or a daily accommodation fee, that is not included in the cap, and you will pay that every day. So, if you're someone of low means who can't afford to pay a RAD, all of your resources can, over time, be gobbled up through the daily accommodation fees. It is not part of the cap; it's not protected. The only thing that is included in the cap is the clinical care fees.

Of course, the new design of the home-care system will drive people out of home care and out of their homes. They might just need that little bit of home care around the house or around the garden. Senator Pocock talked about it, and so did the Greens in their contribution. They might just need that little bit of assistance with some of those daily chores to stay in their own homes. But, with the way that the funding system has been designed under the government's new model, you might as well pay on the cash market than try and go through a home-care package because you will pay more. And, if you're in the upper echelon of wage earners, you could pay double what you're paying on the private market. The design of the scheme is designed to push people out of home care. The waiting times for home care are, quite simply, unacceptable.

Now, the government talks a big game. I go back to the title of the interim report, not the final report, of the royal commission, and the government has a long, sad history of misrepresenting the royal commission—

Debate interrupted.