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

Now that we're at the end of the consideration of amendments, I just want to put on the record that this bill is very important. The reason that the opposition has been keen to support it—despite the fact that we obviously have outlined our many concerns around the errors, the inadequacies and the shortfalls of this bill—was that the most important thing was to make sure that older Australians got certainty around the framework through which they're going to receive their aged care going forward. The choice, control and power of how they receive their aged care going forward are now—hopefully, with the passage of this bill in a few minutes time—going to be vested in the hands of older Australians from 1 July 2025. That was such a significant recommendation of the royal commission. However, I want to put on the record that we still hold grave concerns that many parts of this bill are going to still have unintended consequences. We put on the record that we're still very concerned about the government's preparedness to be ready in time for a smooth transition that will enable the sector to meet the demands of older Australians in a way that we think is appropriate. Obviously the dignity of the care that older Australians receive is absolutely paramount in everything that I think everyone in here wants to achieve.

We're pleased with what we have been able to achieve, through our good-faith negotiations with the government over the last few months, despite being shut out of negotiations initially. We very much welcome the opportunity to have worked with the government over the last few months. I put on the record that Minister Mark Butler has been fantastic in his engagement with the opposition to make sure that we could get this bill through this place to provide that certainty to older Australians.

We were very pleased that we were able to achieve a number of changes that we think have made this bill better, most particularly to make sure that we delivered a fairer deal for older Australians other than they were previously going to get, particularly around things like grandfathering, putting in place caps, making sure that taper rates were not so steep as to be really impactful on Australians and making sure that we got a fairer deal for rural, regional and remote Australia. That's most particularly in the $300 million of additional funding that will made available to rural, regional and remote aged-care homes for capital grants, for upgrades and for new builds, understanding that it's very difficult to find the financial wherewithal to be able to build new facilities in rural, regional and remote Australia. We were also pleased with the uplift in the AN-ACC funding that came through in October so that modified Monash areas from 3 to 7 have received significant increases in their AN-ACC funding, recognising the financial impact of shallow markets.

We will continue to prosecute this bill. Today is only the first step of the passage of this bill. We know there are still another three tranches of rules to come through that require scrutiny, and, as is often the case, the devil will be in the detail. We will continue to scrutinise this delegated legislation as it comes through. We'd also like to thank the hundreds of people who put in submissions to the inquiry. Those submissions were immensely helpful. I say to many of you who did that that many of the amendments that were successfully achieved today—whether they were put forward by the government, the opposition, the crossbench or the Greens—have often been as a result of the evidence that you put forward and the testimony you provided. To those of you that actually came to the hearings—once again, a shout-out to Hannah and all the other lived-experience witnesses who put their real-life experience on the record—we thank you for that. Hopefully this bill is slightly better as a result of the evidence that you have given.

In saying that, the opposition will be supporting the passage of this bill because we fundamentally believe that older Australians need the certainty of a rights based act. That's what we will be supporting.