David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate the extra investments for home modifications and assistive technology. This is obviously very welcome and will go a long way to helping people with disability over the age of 65. But what I'm hearing that people are struggling with is, quite literally, getting hours of personal care support in their package. A person with quadriplegia needs help showering, needs help getting into and out of bed, needs help getting changed. None of that is solved through home mods and assistive technology. It's solved through personal care workers providing the valuable support that they do.

We were just talking about Peter's case and him doing that. That's my question here. This is something that Peter and Lorraine don't have. It was recommended by the royal commission that people over the age of 65 with a disability have these sorts of supports. What can we do about this? How do we not just kick this down the road and say, 'Well, you'll have more technology,' if care hours are actually the problem here?