Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Ageing (Senator Santoro) to questions without notice asked by Senators McLucas, Moore and Marshall today relating to aged care.

The pattern that was established by the Minister for Ageing in his responses to questions yesterday has been confirmed today. Yesterday, Minister Santoro refused to answer specific questions about the George Vowell aged care facility and the Immanuel Gardens facility on the Sunshine Coast. Yesterday, he either avoided, dismissed or did not bother responding to questions. They were specific questions that demanded an answer. They demand a response not only for the people who sit in this chamber but also for the community, which is seeking to understand the appalling events that we have been confronted with over the last eight days—appalling events that require the minister to come clean with the Australia community and tell us what has been occurring. But, unfortunately, today the minister again did not answer specific questions that we believe demand a response.

In fact, the minister did not even acknowledge the questions in some of the responses that he made. He did not acknowledge the issues that have been legitimately raised to try to understand the atrociousness and appalling nature of the allegations that we have heard. I asked the minister today whether he could confirm that a resident’s allegations of abuse, at an unnamed facility in March 2005, were dismissed by the provider, with the police being called only when a second allegation of a similar nature was raised. He said it was ‘disturbing’. We know that. It is disturbing to everybody. He is the minister and we demand that he moves on from ‘disturbing’. We are all disturbed, but the minister for aged care has a responsibility to explain to the community what has led to this set of events. How does it happen that a facility allows nine months to elapse between an allegation occurring and the police finally being called?

I asked the minister what action was taken. He did not even respond to that question. He did not make any attempt to tell us what action is being taken to investigate why that occurred. He did not try at all to explain what he is doing to investigate the claim that an elderly woman was forced to confront the person who allegedly attacked her. None of us can move away from being appalled at that. I think it is the most shocking example of inappropriate dealing with an alleged sexual assault event to make a person, an older person with a brain injury, confront their attacker. But Minister Santoro did nothing to explain that today. He did nothing to tell us what he has done in terms of investigating that complaint. This man is the Minister for Ageing in Australia. He has the responsibility to explain to the community what is occurring in a facility that allows a circumstance like that to occur. I asked him if he had full confidence in the protection provided to frail elderly residents under the government’s aged care system. I asked a similar question of him yesterday. Yesterday, he did not provide the Senate with the view that he had full confidence in the department, in the aged care accreditation agency or in the complaints resolution scheme.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What should he have said?

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He should have said either that he had confidence or that he did not. And if he did not have confidence, he could have then explained which areas he was going to fix so that he could have his confidence restored. That is what the Australian community needs: we need our confidence restored in our aged care system. We know that there are quality providers of aged care out there who are being brought down by the allegations that have been made. We have now four allegations of incredibly appalling abuse of older Australians. This is not just a one-off anymore; this is something that needs more than a meeting in a couple of weeks time. When this was first announced, it was an urgent summit. We were going to pull people together very quickly, and all of a sudden we have found our courtesy and we have got to wait three weeks. I am sorry: the families of these residents cannot sit around waiting for a meeting to happen. We want to see some action from this minister. We want the minister to explain: why does this happen in aged care facilities in Australia? (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to contribute to this debate by saying that apparently I was sitting through a different question time to the one that Senator McLucas sat through this afternoon. I heard the Minister for Ageing answer several questions from the other side of the chamber, and I heard him on each occasion fully respond to the question that was asked of him. He was asked on several indications to indicate what he was doing about these allegations, and I heard him answer quite distinctly that they were being investigated.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not good enough. We want to know where, how and why.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know you want answers, Senator McLucas; we all want answers. Nobody anywhere in this chamber or anywhere in Australia is pleased to hear about these cases. Four cases—albeit out of 100,000 residential placements in Australia—are still, as the minister himself said, four too many. I am disturbed about that and you are disturbed about that. Let us find what the facts are before we jump to conclusions. The minister said, ‘I’m investigating these matters.’ I heard him say that; I am sorry if you did not hear it. Let us see what the investigation reveals before we jump to our feet with sound and fury, signifying nothing. I want to find out what is going on in Australia’s nursing homes. I certainly understand that these problems indicate that a serious examination of our complaints mechanism needs to be made. The minister has indicated that he has a review on his table of Australia’s complaints mechanism and is examining that.

If members opposite think that, after four weeks as Minister for Ageing in Australia, somehow we should have a whole set of answers laid out in front of the Senate on those questions they are being, with great respect, grossly unreasonable. This minister has inherited these issues. None of these issues that were raised in the Senate in the last few days occurred while the minister was Minister for Ageing. They occurred long before his tenure began. He is attempting to ascertain what occurred and to find the facts as the first step in dealing with a problem. Who has a better solution than that, to a problem that might present itself? He is attempting to put in place an appropriate, measured response to those issues. I know members opposite would love to dive in straightaway and believe that they have got all the answers. I remind members that what is being said in most of the cases that have been raised in the media are still allegations. Members opposite are treating these things as proven facts. They are not facts; they are allegations, for the most part, and they need to be examined. In one case, I understand, they were examined by the police at one stage and no charges arose out of that, so we need to be very wary about jumping to conclusions.

The minister inherits a system, however, which is a strong system. This is a system which has had an enormous investment in it by the Australian government over the last 10 years. Spending on aged care in this country has more than doubled in the time since this government came to office. I remind members that the aged population of Australia has nowhere near doubled in that time. In other words, we have made up for a lack of appropriate investment by our predecessors in this sector, and that investment continues to this day. Just last year’s budget provided $320.6 million over four years in new initiatives to support people with dementia and their carers. That is the kind of measure which is going to make a tangible difference to those cases like the one where an elderly person with brain injury was alleged to have been abused and was then not taken seriously. They are the sorts of initiatives that are going to make a difference. That is money that is on the table and is now being spent to deal with those problems. We are spending an additional $207.6 million to increase the availability of respite care for a further 1.3 million days over four years, and there is $152 million for a $1,000 per resident one-off payment to aged-care providers, to lift the quality available in Australia’s nursing homes.

Members opposite can make a great-sounding case that this should all have been fixed in the first 28 days of this minister’s tenure. I think most Australians are a bit more realistic than that. They acknowledge that these problems are real but are prepared to work with the government and with these kinds of commitments to see these problems solved. That is a mature and appropriate approach. Nobody underplays the importance of these issues, but they are receiving the attention they deserve. Members opposite should stop playing politics with these incredibly sensitive issues and acknowledge that they are ones that deserve calm and considered responses. (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a disappointing defence of the Minister for Ageing that Senator Humphries has just made. To come to the Senate and suggest to us that because the minister has only been in charge of his portfolio for some 28 days somehow the government has no accountability, no responsibility for fixing this mess and no responsibility for this mess in the first place is very disappointing. The only thing more disappointing today was the incompetence shown by this minister in not answering the questions and not really going to the issues that underpin the substantial flaws in the aged care system.

Senator Humphries well knows that these issues are not new. Even though these issues have just become public recently, these issues have been well known for a long time. Senator Humphries was involved in an inquiry into the aged care system—an inquiry which I chaired. We actually tabled a unanimous Senate report. Every single member of that inquiry unanimously supported all of the recommendations. That report was tabled in June 2005. Some of the recommendations, which I will come to in a minute, go to the very crux of the problem that we are being confronted with today. They go to problems with the complaints resolution procedure, the intimidation of families of residents who actually make complaints, people being dissuaded from making complaints, the complaints process not actually accepting complaints and complaints not becoming complaints unless the complaints body actually accepts them as complaints in the first place.

What we found in that report was that some 13 per cent of complaints that are actually made do not register as complaints because the complaints authority does not accept them as complaints. So they just fall off the radar. Senator Santoro, the minister responsible at this present point in time, suggests to us that, because less than 50 per cent of people who actually complain fill in a survey and some percentage in that survey say they are somewhat satisfied with the complaints system, we can then say that everything must be okay with the complaints system. That is really a bridge too far for this Senate to accept.

The recommendations were tabled in June 2005. The normal process for the government is to actually respond to Senate reports within a period of three months. What has this government done with the aged care report which identifies the problems with the accreditation standards and many other issues to do with aged care? Has there been a response? No, there has not been a response. I actually put to the Senate on 6 October last year my concern that the government had not responded to that committee inquiry of the previous June. I asked why the minister was publicly talking about some of the problems with aged care but had not responded to the Senate report which identified some of these problems. Maybe if that minister had taken her responsibilities seriously at the time then Senator Santoro as the minister responsible today might not be in the mess that he is in.

This is a mess that could have been avoided by this government because these issues have been made public. They have been tabled before the Senate. Senator Humphries cannot simply say, ‘Give the minister a chance.’ I asked the minister directly today about the Senate report. He did not even mention the Senate report. Senator Humphries, you suggested that the minister answered all of the questions fully. You ought to go back and check Hansard. Read the question I asked and you will see that Senator Santoro made no effort at all to answer my question. He went off on a tangent to talk about the complaints facility but did not come back to the Senate inquiry, which was the basis of my question.

I will go to some of the elements of the inquiry. I think it is certainly worth while. Some of the recommendations go to one of the very important aspects of this—that is, whistleblower protection; actually giving employees in nursing nomes protection to enable them to complain about the standards and treatment of people in their care. They should have protection for doing that because we know—and the Senate report talks about it—about a culture of intimidation in some nursing homes. I do not want to paint a picture that all nursing homes are bad. We do not believe that and we say that is not true. The majority of nursing homes are good and they provide adequate care. But where there is inappropriate care and illegal activity, the system does not enable it to be dealt with. (Time expired)

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am quite pleased to stand here to take note of answers by Minister Santo Santoro. What the Minister for Ageing did in responding to questions from Labor senators on the other side of the chamber was entirely appropriate. He gave direct, straight answers to the questions. He said that he would look into the matter. He has organised meetings. He advised the Senate and the public when these meetings would be held and who they would be held with. He also advised that he would be taking on board any other advice and information from representatives of the aged care community and he was happy to have one-on-one meetings with those representatives over the days and weeks ahead.

What was very important in his response was that he said that he would not be providing a knee-jerk response. This is exactly the type of response that the Labor Party is hoping the minister will provide. He is smarter than that, you see. He is more measured and professional than that. He is going to be an excellent Minister for Ageing. The minister, as people on the other side know, is one of the hardest working senators. He will be looking into these matters with the greatest amount of vigour that you could ever imagine. As Senator Humphries has indicated, we are talking about four incidents—in fact, four allegations have been made. They will be looked into. I think everyone in this place and in the community would support a 100 per cent effort to ensure that the quality of care provided in Australia’s aged care facilities is first class and, in fact, world class. The minister’s responses were entirely appropriate.

What I do want to highlight, however, is what has happened in the aged care sector since 1996, when Labor left office. There has been a vast improvement. What was happening in and around 1996 was that we were caught up in red tape. There was a lot of difficulty in providing a quality service, access to those aged care services and a viable industry. They are the three key planks: providing a quality service, providing access to those aged care services and ensuring a viable industry. That was not happening in 1996. Do you know what has happened since then? There has been a more than doubling of funding and an injection of funds into the aged care sector. We had a review under Minister Julie Bishop. Prior to her we had the excellent leadership of Minister Kevin Andrews. They were great ministers for ageing and aged care. Pursuant to that review, you might recall, in the 2004 budget we had a $2.2 billion injection into the aged care sector over a number of years. That was a huge boost. We all remember when that announcement was made. We said that that was fantastic for older Australians who find themselves heading towards the possibility of moving into an aged care facility, whether it is high care or low care.

Indeed, community aged care packages have gone through the roof exponentially under the government. We have a policy of encouraging older Australians to stay in their homes, if they would most prefer it, and we provide funds to make that happen. There has been a boost in funding to Home and Community Care provisions to ensure that the services and the maintenance in and around the home can be undertaken so that older Australians can stay in their homes. You might say, ‘How do I know what was happening in and around 1996?’ Well, I can tell you. I was on the board of St Ann’s, one of the oldest age cared facilities in Tasmania, for eight years. I know how hard it was for an aged care provider in Tasmania to remain viable and to provide quality care and access to that quality care in and around the southern Tasmanian and Hobart region. I have a lot of time and respect for Susan Parr, the CEO of St Ann’s, and she remains in that position providing excellent leadership not only at St Ann’s but in Tasmania.

As a Tasmanian senator, let me say that I am proud of the Tasmanian aged care sector. They provide excellent quality care across the board. There may be incidents from time to time, but the leadership provided by Aged and Community Services Tasmania is par excellence. (Time expired)

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really saddened to have to stand in this place this afternoon to make some note about the responses the Minister for Ageing gave to us on questions that covered a whole range of issues in the aged care industry. We have the absolute horror of the allegations of elder abuse that has come forward, and I think it needs an immediate response. It is not being bulldozed, as the minister said, into a knee-jerk response. What we and the wider community expect is that the horror of these allegations is acknowledged and that there is some form of urgent response to those issues of abuse. There is no other way to describe it. It seems to me that a process must be put in place to have an urgent response to those issues.

Wider issues were raised this afternoon. There was the issue of the systemic operation of aged care in our community. In terms of the responses the minister gave, we were able to extract some information today that were actually supplementary responses to questions that were asked yesterday specifically about the accreditation of an aged care home on the Sunshine Coast, the Immanuel home. Senator McLucas, who asked very specialised questions yesterday about that process, was not able to get any answers. When I asked follow-up questions today, the minister had obviously receive some information overnight. Perhaps, as he acknowledged, he watched Lateline and saw some of the issues that were being raised across the board, and he was able to respond to us on that. He was able today, not yesterday, to give us some detail of the accreditation process that was put in place for the age care home on the Sunshine Coast. He was able to, ponderously, go through step by step how the accreditation process operates. What he could not give us was any sense of genuine confidence that that accreditation process was responding to—and I quote directly from my question and from the accreditation process—‘a record of persistent failure to comply with accreditation standards over the last three years’.

We are not talking about an urgent issue about which no-one had any knowledge; we are talking about an established age care facility that was subject to the accreditation process, which we worked through in the Senate Community Affairs References Committee and which tabled the report, to which Senator Marshall referred, Quality and equity in aged care. We were given advice then about how the accreditation process operates. A range of witnesses came before that inquiry, raising concerns about how they felt the process operated and wanting to be involved in some solutions, because everybody shares the concern about ensuring that our older Australians have access to safe, quality aged care. The minister made that point yesterday, and I think again today, that we all have this concern.

Through the aged care Senate inquiry, which, as Senator Marshall said, reported to this place in June 2005, we gave 51 unanimous recommendations that were gathered together over months during that inquiry and while working with many of the same people that the minister has said he will be meeting with in early March. I will call it a meeting; he may call it a ‘summit’. But it is not that urgent, because it is taking several weeks to happen. Many of those people, if not all of them—and I will check that to make sure—gave evidence to our inquiry. One of the core aspects of that was the absolute necessity to have community confidence in the assessment process. We know there must be standards in terms of care for aged Australians. There are a range of those, and anybody can access that through the website or contacting the accreditation agency, and there are processes for each agency to be assessed. The minister did talk through how some of that occurred.

What we did not have was immediate action on a persistent failure to meet those standards over three years. Minister, this is not a knee-jerk reaction. We want some confidence in a system that is public and has been lauded as one of the best in the world. I do have great respect for the people who work in this system. But where there is persistent failure to meet standards there must be immediate action; otherwise, how will things be fixed? Minister, do not feel bulldozed into taking action, which you said maybe you felt today; actually feel the commitment to take action to meet the expectations of the community. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.