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

In the interests of trying to get my head around this, when I was at the ACCPA conference—the aged-care providers annual conference—a question was asked of a panel which included the aged-care commissioner and the complaints commissioner. The question, which went to the complaints commissioner, was: what would be different under the new provisions that are contained in this act in relation to the receiving and actioning of complaints compared to the current situation? The complaints commissioner actually said that there would be no difference. We asked the commissioner at estimates—I think you were there, Minister, when we asked the commissioner—and she made reference to the fact that that probably wasn't correct; there would be things that would be different. Throughout the inquiry process, there were concerns raised about the timeliness not just of reporting but of the actioning on reporting.

There were also concerns around the fact that the complaints commissioner was embedded within the commission for two reasons. One is what difference would that make from existing provisions, and the other is what happens if the complaint was actually about the commission in the first place. Unpacking those two issues, I ask: what are the substantive changes in relation to the role of the complaints commissioner that are contained in this bill that don't currently exist?