Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a correction to the explanatory memorandum relating to the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006.

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

Labor welcomes discussion on the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006. It is largely technical in nature but has some policy implications which we need to discuss. Schedule 1 of the bill is to amendthe Aged Care Act 1997 to harmonise aged care and pension assets tests in relation to income streams and gifted assets under the asset test for entry into permanent residential aged care. This was announced in the 2006-07 budget and is largely non-controversial, and Labor will support the measure. Schedule 2 of the bill amends the act to allow the secretary to delegate specific members of the aged-care assessment teams—the ACATs, as they are known—the powers under the Residential Care Subsidy Principles 1997 to increase the maximum number of days allowed for a care recipient to receive residential respite care. This is also non-controversial, and Labor will support this amendment. The measure to delegate authority to specified members of the ACATs allows those members to react in a timely way to events that individual families are facing. Often families in respite are, for a range of reasons, in somewhat of a crisis, and people need extended care for all sorts of emergency situations, so we support this measure.

The bill was referred by the government to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs for inquiry. The sector, I have to say, was somewhat bemused by the fact that the reference was made by the government, given the largely non-controversial intent of the legislation. But the committee did its job, undertook an inquiry and recommended passing the bill without amendment. But during the course of the inquiry it was recognised that a very small number of people—people who will move from one facility to another during the course of this legislation taking effect—will receive a different assets assessment when they move to the second facility. I recognise that that is a very small number of people, but I think the sector should be alive to that and alive to the fact that it may cause a little bit of confusion for some people.

The move to align asset testing with pension asset testing was recommended by Professor Warren Hogan in his Review of pricing arrangements in residential care, a report that was handed down in 2004. We know the government provided what was called the short-term response to Hogan in the 2004-05 budget, but along with that was a commitment by the government to develop what is now commonly known as the long-term response to Professor Hogan’s report. That long-term response was intended to address issues of strategic financing of the residential aged-care sector. We know that the government established a committee and that committee undertook a range of consultations, and it is well known in the sector that the long-term response to Hogan—the report developed by that committee—was handed to the previous minister in August 2005.

Here we are, 14 months later, after $1.3 million was spent on that activity, and we have still not seen the report. It is the result of hours of work—from not only departmental officials and the committee itself but volunteer time from the sector—and, in this policy vacuum, frustration in the residential aged-care sector has grown, and it is frustration that the Labor Party shares. It is essential that the government release this paper so that the discussion can be reinvigorated in an informed environment and consensus about the direction we need to take can be found.

Late on Thursday afternoon, a government amendment was circulated in this chamber, and there was a supplementary explanatory memorandum which states that the government’s amendment to its bill is in response to ‘concerns raised in consultations with the community that prospective aged-care residents who purchased an income stream on or after 20 September 2004’ could be financially ‘disadvantaged by the new subsections 44-10(1A) and (1B)’ that were originally proposed. The supplementary explanatory memorandum states:

Changes to pension arrangements announced in February 2004 mean that the then 100 percent aged pension asset test exemption for purchased complying income streams was reduced to 50 percent for products purchased from 20 September 2004.

New subsections 44-10(1A) and (1B) originally proposed would align the aged care asset test with the current aged pension asset test, such that 50 percent of the asset value of the complying income stream would be assessable upon entry into residential aged care.

Currently people entering residential aged care have 100 per cent complying income exemption for income streams. If these assets are now tested at 50 per cent to bring them in line with the aged-care pension assets test and they already have an aged-care assessment that is current for 12 months, they will be disadvantaged. Given the time that we have had to deal with this very late amendment, it is our view that this amendment removes the disadvantage. As a consequence—but we do need to hear the debate on this—it will be supported by the Labor Party.

I cannot let this pass without making some comments about the process by which this amendment and the explanation of this amendment came before the chamber. As I said, the amendment first appeared in the chamber on Thursday and then we had no supplementary explanatory memorandum until mid-afternoon on Friday. In the committee stage of this bill I will want to have from the minister an explanation as to why the amendment was so late. I will want to know when the consultations occurred and with whom. I want to note that this issue was not raised during the inquiry, and it was an opportunity for the department surely to indicate at that time that an amendment was required.

The Labor Party are also moving an amendment today to this legislation. The amendment we are moving will ensure that all aged-care facilities in Australia do actually receive one unannounced support contact every year and that, during this spot check, the facility will be assessed against all of the 44 quality outcomes of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. The reason I am moving this amendment is to ensure that the government does its duty by the 166,000 frail older Australians who reside in residential aged care, who deserve the best our society can give, and to ensure the confidence of residents, their families and the Australian public in Australia’s residential aged-care system. Following the revelations of elder abuse earlier this year, the minister indicated that each residential aged-care facility would have one unannounced spot check annually. It has been brought to my attention though that the government intends doing the spot checks on a reduced number of the 44 quality outcomes of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. This is equivalent in my view to taking your car in for a service and the mechanic only kicking the tyres. The newsletter to members of Aged and Community Services Australia on 7 September 2006 carried a report which stated:

In response to the issue of abuse of older people, the [Aged Care Standards and Accreditation] Agency will be conducting more spot checks and it is expected that every facility will receive at least one spot check each year. The procedure for support contacts and spot checks will change from the previous process. The Agency will decide which outcomes are to be assessed prior to the visit and the assessors will be required to keep within this framework. The decision of the outcomes to be assessed will most likely relate to issues raised in the additional information part of the accreditation report and specific outcomes as determined by the Agency. In preparing for a support visit or spot check, members should review the additional information in their report and highlight for action any issues that may have been mentioned.

So not only are spot checks going to be undertaken on a reduced number of quality outcomes but any aged-care facility will have a fair idea of what they will be checked on. The vast majority of residential aged-care providers in Australia deliver excellent care, but this gives poor providers the opportunity to put on their Sunday best in anticipation of a visit. The Australian public deserve to know what the government is planning. At the end of the year the government will be telling the people of Australia how fantastic they are because they were able to undertake all of these spot checks. What the public will not know is that the spot checks will only be done on a reduced number of the current 44 quality outcomes.

Under this government, we have seen a series of scandals in some aged-care facilities. The kerosene baths incident in 2002 and the appalling sex abuse scandal that came to light this year are two that come to mind. After the kerosene baths incident, the then Minister for Ageing, Mrs Bronwyn Bishop, announced ‘a stepped up program of random spot checks’. It is important to ask: what happened? There are about 3,000 residential aged-care facilities in Australia. In 2000-01 we saw 360 spot checks. In 2001-02 we saw 449. In 2002-03 there were 242 spot checks, out of a total of around 3,000 aged-care facilities in Australia. In 2003-04 we saw 553 spot checks and the following year 563. In 2004-05 this meant that one in five aged-care facilities in Australia received a spot check. In my view, and in the view of many residents and their families, this is not good enough. Mrs Bishop said that random spot checks would be ‘stepped up’. Those were her words. Has that been the case? I do not think so. The government should be given one out of five for their effort.

The current Minister for Ageing repeated a similar promise earlier this year. He said that every home will receive one announced visit each year. He went on to say, ‘These spot checks will focus on care standards and provide an incentive for consistent delivery of high-quality care.’ Labor called for one spot check on every facility every year back in 2001. Finally the government seems to have picked up Labor’s policy, even though it is five years too late and after several appalling incidents in residential aged-care facilities. Labor want to ensure that these spot checks actually happen and that facilities are checked with regard to all of the care services that residential aged-care providers provide. That is the basis for our amendment. It puts the government’s rhetoric into legislation. Since the minister’s announcement at the May budget this year, we saw 142 spot checks in May and 139 in June. But it seems we have a new category of spot check: a partial spot check. The minister wants to do these spot checks on a reduced number of the 44 quality outcomes of the accreditation agency—for example, you might look at privacy and dignity but not look at nutrition and hydration; maybe you assess infection control but not the issue of adequate staffing.

I would have thought the public’s expectation would be that spot checks would be undertaken on all 44 quality outcomes—that a spot check actually means an assessment of the facility’s compliance with all elements of quality care. If the minister wants to ensure that all aged-care facilities receive a spot check every year, instead of cutting the number of quality outcomes inspected he needs to work with the accreditation agency to ensure this can be undertaken against all 44 quality outcomes. Yet again, we see the Howard government and the Minister for Ageing trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public.

Only recently, an aged-care facility in Victoria failed 30 of the 44 quality outcomes. The accreditation agency said in its report on the facility: ‘Given the widespread non-compliance against the accreditation standards, the agency considered whether the home should have its accreditation revoked.’ Instead, the only penalty the facility received was a reduction in its accreditation period by four months. What sort of confidence does this give the Australian community in the delivery of quality care in our community?

The minister needs to come clean and tell the Australian public what his real intentions are. These frail Australians and their families are reliant on his government to provide quality care in Australia’s residential aged-care facilities. But all the minister is requiring the agency to do is to kick the tyres and not do a thorough assessment that would go some way towards assuring that quality care is provided to the 166,000 residents in aged-care facilities when they require it most—when they are frail and feel powerless.

I will be moving an amendment to ensure that each residential aged-care facility has at least one unannounced spot check annually, that no notice of the spot check is given and that the facility is assessed against all 44 expected outcomes of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. This is only what frail older Australians and their families would expect of our government at the time of their greatest need. The minister must ensure that residents, their families and the public can have greater confidence in the quality of care. The Howard government needs to be held to account, and this amendment will ensure that the rhetoric of this minister and previous ministers is delivered upon.

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

I rise to speak in support of the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 and to respond to some of Senator McLucas’s comments and quotes. Firstly, I congratulate and thank the members of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs on their report which has been tabled in this place. I thank the chair of the committee, Senator Gary Humphries, and I acknowledge the deputy chair, Senator Claire Moore, and Senator Judith Adams. I had been a member of the committee for a long time until recently. I was a substitute member during the inquiry into this legislation, although I did not appear at the hearings that were undertaken by the committee. I note that the report recommends that the bill be supported, and that is certainly to be noted.

We have a vastly improved aged-care environment and system in Australia today because of the many initiatives undertaken by the Howard government since 1996. Senator McLucas was happy to criticise and attack the government for doing this or for not doing that. She specifically referred to Professor Warren Hogan’s report, which was tabled publicly in 2004. I want to respond to that by saying that, in response to the Hogan report, the government committed $2.4 billion to the aged-care sector, the biggest commitment ever undertaken by an Australian government in support of the aged-care sector. So Senator McLucas’s claim that the response was inadequate and unsatisfactory is entirely baseless.

The government’s response to the Hogan report was provided in the 2004-05 budget. I want to touch on a few of those things, because it was a very important response which now provides the foundation for the excellent aged-care system and arrangements that we have in Australia today. The government’s response carefully targeted and addressed the most immediate challenges, including making more places available; it increased capital investment; it improved education and training for aged-care workers; and it developed a new funding model that streamlined administration and ensured that providers must meet more transparent financial reporting requirements. Of the government’s 31 new initiatives, 28 are already in place—benefiting residents, their families, aged-care providers and nursing and care staff—and the remaining three initiatives are on track for implementation.

I remind senators on the other side—and, indeed, members of the public—of the comparison between Labor’s funding for aged care in 1995-96 and the coalition’s funding for aged care in 2006-07. Aged-care funding under Labor was $3 billion and it is $7.8 billion under the coalition. The total number of aged-care places under Labor was 141,293; under the coalition, the total number of aged-care places was 193,753 at 30 June last year. Residential care funding under Labor was $2.5 billion; under this government, residential aged-care funding was $5.6 billion in 2006-07. There were 138,987 residential care places under Labor; under the coalition, there were 161,165 residential care places at 30 June 2005. Funding for community aged-care packages—and I want to speak a bit more about this shortly—was $33.1 million under Labor; under this government, it is $414 million this financial year, an increase of more than 1,000 per cent. That is one of the benefits of the Howard government, ensuring that families, wherever possible, can stay in their own homes. There were 4,441 community care places under Labor; under the coalition, there are 32,588 places—and the list goes on. The comparisons are ready and available on the public record for anybody who wishes to make them.

The good thing about the Australian aged-care system—and I will speak broadly about this before focusing on the bill and responding further to Senator McLucas—is the fact that we provide quality care. Among the key ingredients are quality care, access to care and ensuring a viable industry across Australia. That is good news for Australians, particularly older Australians, and their families. Across the board—and this is based on the latest figures that I have seen—some 13 per cent of the population are 65 years or over. That figure is of course creeping up. In my home state of Tasmania it is some 17-odd per cent and rising. I know South Australia is achieving the record across the states and territories, and my home state is heading towards achieving that record by 2020. The number of those aged 65 and over is expected to double over the next 40 years, so we must take steps now not only to support older Australians but to prepare for a substantial increase in their numbers. That is why the government is giving priority to quality in both care and accommodation. As I said, that is among the key ingredients, the others being ensuring access to care—that includes the rural and regional parts of Australia, including those of Tasmania—giving people choice, assisting people to remain in their homes and making sure our system is sustainable.

Having made a few comments on that, I want to thank industry participants not only for their feedback on the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 but also for their feedback on the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs report that has been tabled—there were five submissions made to the Senate committee—and the general feedback that we get. Senator Santo Santoro, the Minister for Ageing, is one of the most consultative ministers around. He listens carefully. One of the first things he did when he became a minister was to get together the key stakeholders, the key people and the key participants and say to them, ‘I want to listen to you. I want to get your feedback.’ I congratulate him on his leadership to date in that portfolio with its many challenges. I thank him for his leadership on this bill and on many other respects relating to the aged-care sector.

I refer to Aged and Community Services Australia. Susan Parr is the executive director, Tasmania. I thank her for her feedback and I thank, for their feedback, those people in the aged-care sector in Tasmania that meet with me and talk with me and meet with my Senate Tasmanian colleagues on the government side. I thank ACSA nationally, particularly Greg Mundy for his work over many years in ensuring a close liaison with members of this government and indeed others across the board.

Senator McLucas has referred to Professor Warren Hogan’s report and our ‘inadequate’ response. I think I have adequately dealt with that. She has flagged a Labor amendment which I must say, based on my reading of it, would provide no notice to a residential care provider. It seems to be part of an approach to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. My understanding of the up to 30 minutes notice to a residential provider aspect is that it is appropriate and adequate at the moment, but further discussions and debate will be had about that in the committee stage of this bill.

The bill is in two main parts. The first part relates to the harmonising of the aged-care and pension requirements in relation to income streams and asset disposals. The second relates to aged-care assessment team delegations under schedule 2. I would like to speak firstly on the importance of consistency under schedule 1. This relates to gifting and income streams. It is basically ensuring that we have a consistent policy across the board that applies to our aged-care residents. It should be a consistent approach as it applies to Department of Veterans’ Affairs policy, to Centrelink policy and to our pension policy. Currently, assets gifted by prospective residents are excluded from assessment for aged-care assessment testing purposes but are included in the pension assets test and may reduce the amount of age pension a person receives. This is the point: if it can affect their pension then surely the arrangement should apply in the aged-care sector as well. As the current arrangements apply until 1 January 2007, people entering or moving between residential aged-care homes up to and including 31 December 2006 will not be affected. That needs to be made clear as we do not want any scaremongering, as has happened in the past on these matters, particularly with respect to Welfare to Work government policy arrangements.

Nevertheless, if you put that aside you will see that from 1 January 2007 people who enter residential aged care or move to another aged-care home and seek an assets assessment through Centrelink or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs will have any gifts that they have made from the date of 10 May this year—10 May being budget night; that is when the announcement was made, so it is entirely appropriate that that is included in the bill—and that exceed the allowable amounts included in that assessment. The allowable amounts are those that currently apply for pension asset-testing purposes as well as for pension and aged-care income assessment purposes. What are they? They are $10,000 in any financial year or $30,000 over a five-year period. That seems entirely fair, just and appropriate. That is why I, like my other colleagues on this side, am supportive of this particular amendment.

In terms of the income streams, currently the capital component—that is, the principal amount of a purchased income stream—is not included in an asset assessment for aged care. And amendments to pension arrangements announced in February 2004 mean that market-linked income streams purchased from 20 September 2004 that satisfy certain conditions are granted complying income stream status, which means that they qualify for the pension assets test exemption. At the same time, the then 100 per cent assets test exemption for purchased complying income streams was reduced to 50 per cent for products purchased on or after 20 September 2004. So complying income streams purchased before the date continue to be fully exempt from the assets test.

As the aged-care assets test only applies on entry to an aged-care home or on moving to another home, existing residents will not be affected by these changes while they remain in the same aged-care home. That seems fair; it is like a grandfathering provision, and it is consistent with the government’s policy of fairness across the board. A minor amendment has been flagged and I will allow other members of the committee to speak to that shortly.

With respect to the role of ACAT—the aged-care assessment team—and that delegation, it is to comprehensively assess the care needs of frail older Australians with complex care needs and assist them to access the most appropriate care services available. The Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing currently delegates the powers of approval for aged-care services under the act to the ACAT members. They have a job to do and they do it, on the whole, extremely well. They do it, at times, under pressure and in challenging circumstances. And I think the aged-care sector across the board also recognises that it is important to have spot checks from time to time. It is of course important that aged-care assessment teams assess aged-care residents with respect to their capacities and so on. Currently, ACAT members assess the merits of respite care extensions but, unlike other care services, do not have the delegated authority to approve any extensions. So there are some very good arguments in favour of the government’s bill and I hope that there will not be too much nitpicking over this legislation.

I also want to say a little bit more about the aged-care assessment team and the respite delegations. As I say, ACAT members have a job to do; it is important for them to fulfil their responsibilities so that we know exactly where the aged-care resident sits with respect to the type of care—high care, low care and the different categories of high and low care—that they receive when they enter the aged-care residence. Residential respite care is limited to 63 days per financial year for a care recipient. However, the secretary may increase the maximum number of days allowed.

Respite care can be particularly important. I have a very dear friend in Launceston who just spent three or four weeks in respite care and I cannot tell you how much that was appreciated. During that time in respite care, his health and wellbeing increased markedly. I thank the home involved for the wonderful care that he received and I know that all those involved were caring and provided tremendous support.

There is a demand—in Tasmania and, I know, in other parts of Australia—for these important aged-care services. This bill streamlines and improves the current arrangements so that there is consistency across the board, and a harmonisation of the aged-care and pension requirements in relation to income streams and asset disposals. It is basically applying a consistent standard across the board, whether it relates to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs or whether it relates to Centrelink. They should be harmonised, and this amendment addresses those two difficulties regarding income streaming and asset disposal.

In conclusion, I would again like to say that I think the government’s record on aged care is almost unbelievable. It has been a substantial and significant effort, particularly since the response to Professor Hogan. In regard to the lead-up to that, I want to acknowledge Minister Kevin Andrews for his leadership and, indeed, Julie Bishop for hers and for her response as Minister Bishop to the Hogan report. A lot of effort was put into that. An amount of $2.2 billion was invested into the aged-care sector. That was the largest single investment in aged care by any Australian government in history and I think the Howard government should be proud of that. I know that the funds that are flowing through now into the aged-care sector are well appreciated. Finally, I thank Senator Santoro for his leadership and his efforts on this bill and the aged-care sector generally. He has my full support and the full support of others on this committee, both on the government side and, I know, the coalition side, and I thank him for his leadership.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006, as has been said, has two main effects. Firstly, the bill aims to harmonise the aged-care and pension assets test in relation to income streams and asset disposals. Secondly, the bill allows the secretary to delegate to specific members of the aged-care assessment teams to increase the maximum number of days allowed for a care recipient to receive residential respite care.

Whenever the issue of aged care comes before this place, we must treat it with the utmost seriousness and respect. The welfare of our aged citizens must be one of our primary concerns. Those in our community who, for reasons of age and health, require additional assistance and support deserve only our best efforts in setting up and maintaining aged care. We must recognise and acknowledge the debt we owe to our aged community. They are our parents and our grandparents; they are the generation that lived through the Great Depression, a world war and a rate of change in society that has been unequalled in human history. Many of them are part of that great wave of migration that took place after the Second World War and therefore many of them come from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Without our aged citizens we would not be the society that we are today. It is through their efforts that we are who we are. They are the people who built our nation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us that we must ensure that the legislation that deals with aged care is designed foremost with their needs in mind. We should never do anything but our best for them.

I believe that there is every reason for us to be very concerned about the state of aged care in this country. I know that the government will come into this place and trumpet its achievements. It will tell us how the number of aged-care placements per thousand people has increased. It will tell us about record numbers of aged-care places and record levels of expenditure. For example, currently there are 169,056 places in aged care. Projections sourced from Aged and Community Services Australia show that that will rise to 263,941 in 2021 and 356,512 in 2031. That shows that over the next 25 years the number of aged-care places will more than double.

But what steps are now being taken to ensure that there are sufficient skilled workers able to work in those facilities in the future? Over the next 25 years, if it is anticipated that the number of places will double, is it not also the case that the number of staff needed will double? What steps is this government taking to ensure that the places are available to train all of those additional staff? Is it a reasonable question to ask given that the places are now being created in our university systems for training of additional nurses? How many of them are being reserved for aged-care nurses? Aged care is not just about places. Our approach must take into account the need to train additional staff. When will the Minister for Ageing outline the government’s approach to ensure that we will have enough skilled staff to accommodate the expected increase in aged-care places? It is very simple to provide the bricks and mortar; it is a lot more complex to provide the care that needs to take place inside the bricks and mortar.

We know from bitter experience over the last 10 years that this is not a government with a good record on skill shortages. For years, the government denied that there was a problem. Only after a crisis that was already here and affecting the economy could the government stir itself to do something about it. This is a government that is concerned about the next election, not about what is going to happen in 25 years time. Although one of the key tasks of the Minister for Ageing should be to ensure that there will be sufficient trained staff to work in aged-care facilities, I suspect, based on our past experiences with this government, that no forward planning is yet being undertaken. Our fellow Australians surely deserve much better. Let us not reduce the future direction of aged care to being just about places. Let us also bring forward policies that ensure that we will have trained and skilled staff to work in all of the facilities in the future.

Let us also be clear that this government—that is, the government that is focused only on the next election—has failed in its delivery of places in the aged-care system. In my own state of Western Australia, the number of places for people aged over 70 years showed a shortfall of 262 places in December last year. In June this year, that shortfall had increased from 262 to 567 places. We are now seeing a situation develop in Western Australia where the number of places targeted—that is, 88 beds per thousand people aged 70 and over—has fallen. Nationally the figures are just as severe. The bed shortage versus the target now shows a shortfall of some 4,613 places. This simply is not good enough. The Commonwealth government is failing our aged citizens, and it is time for a new approach. Over the last 10 years, this federal government has seen a surplus of 800 beds turn into a shortfall of 4,613. We cannot afford another 10 years like that. We have to accept the reality that people are living longer and that this will have an impact on the delivery of aged care.

One of the greatest achievements of the Labor government from 1983 to 1996 was the introduction of compulsory superannuation. This was a nation-building activity of the very first order. We now require such a new approach in aged care. But all this government has done is tinker with the current system—kept the system ticking over from one election to the next. We need a Labor government that will treat the aged-care system with the type of forward planning that we used for superannuation. Only Labor is prepared to look beyond the next election. Only Labor is prepared to undertake a complete overhaul of aged care to build for the future. And only Labor is prepared to do the hard work to ensure that we have enough skilled workers for the aged-care system.

When discussing aged care, all of us in this place bring thoughts of our own families and needs. I am no different. My maternal grandmother is the glue that keeps my family in Victoria together. Some of us live in Western Australia; others have lived in other parts of Australia. But she is the glue that binds us together. On 29 August this year, the Melbourne Age carried an article titled ‘Nursing homes fall short’. The story was about two nursing homes, owned by the same company, that were failing several basic standards of accreditation. I know that Senator McLucas has referred to one of those facilities. The article said:

In one of the homes, medicines had been administered incorrectly or not at all, residents were not assured of getting the medical care they needed and had been kept out of one another’s rooms with chains.

The article said that the home:

... did not have enough qualified staff ‘to ensure that the residents receive appropriate clinical and lifestyle care’. In all it failed 22 standards.

The facts as reported in the Age tell one side of the story. The minister and his department will tell another. An accreditation audit reveals those standards that an aged-care facility meets and fails to meet. There is no doubt that an accreditation regime is an important element in ensuring decent standards. The one voice that is not clear in this issue is that of the residents and their families.

I should declare that I have more than a passing interest in the goings on in that aged-care facility. Although the facility—Plumpton Villa, as it is known—is in Glenroy in Victoria, and I live in Perth in Western Australia, I am interested in what is happening there because it is the facility where my grandmother is residing—that glue that keeps the fabric of my family together. Whilst Senator Barnett may come in here and talk about Labor’s approach as bringing a sledgehammer to crack a nut or nitpicking, a sledgehammer is not good enough when it comes to the care of my grandmother. I am prepared to do anything, including raising my voice in this chamber, to ensure that she is looked after in the way that she should be.

My grandmother, like many of her generation who lived through the Depression in Victoria, was a healthy woman for most of her life. The only time she went to hospital was to have her four children, until she needed to be admitted to her aged-care facility. She now suffers from osteoporosis. My grandmother, like many people who live in aged-care facilities these days, not only suffers from the lack of skilled workers, and their lack of understanding and training, but also from the torment of having to share the facility with dementia patients. Apart for the usual problems of osteoporosis, she is still relatively healthy and certainly has a robust and intellectually alert mind. To her mind, the facility that she lives in is now overrun with dementia patients and she feels as socially isolated as she did when she was living in her own home, even though it was the family’s view that she probably should move from her home to avoid social isolation.

I gather that, since the publicity in the Age, the caring regime at Plumpton Villa has improved—I can vouch from personal experience that it no longer smells the way it used to. However, I would like to place the villa and the department on notice that this is one facility in which, although it is in Victoria, I take a very keen personal interest. You can expect to hear a lot more from me if it is allowed to slip back to its former standards.

Aged care affects all of us in the community and, because it affects all of us, it is a cheap shot to talk about sledgehammers and nitpicking. I am sure I am not alone in having such care and concern for my grandmother. Every grandchild would share the same concern. The Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro, when discussing the issue of Plumpton Villa, said, ‘We are going to keep it under very close surveillance.’ Well, Senator Santoro—not just you, but me as well. We are both going to keep it under very close surveillance. We must acknowledge that not every facility has the relative of a member of parliament residing in it, but they do have the residents and their families.

One of the major concerns about the aged-care system into the future is that often for many people the argument is reduced to a question of the number of places available. It is not just the number of places—it is the quality of those places. It is important that we recognise that aged care in this country is the future. It is not just about the number of high-care or low-care places that are available. We know pretty well what is before us. Population projections and trends make it obvious that an increasing number of our fellow citizens are living longer. Therefore, it is possible to determine demand for years in advance. It is crucially important to plan for that trend. Australia is luckier than many other countries in that our ageing population can be balanced not only by an increase in our birth rate, which has been taking place in recent years, but also by a modification in our migration intake. However, the fact remains that people are living longer and more of them will require care in the future. To simply reduce the question of future needs to the number of places available overlooks an important factor—who will work in the facilities of the future? Only Labor is prepared to build this nation for the future, to ensure that our aged citizens can approach their retirement with security, equity, and decency for all.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006, which proposes a number of amendments to the Aged Care Act 1997. These changes are designed to simplify the interaction of the aged-care and pension arrangements for greater transparency and to facilitate wise financial planning for older Australians. This bill recognises two core strengths of the Howard government’s dedication to our ageing population and the elimination of unnecessary paperwork, cutting red tape to provide more sustainable systems in the long term. These amendments will provide a saving of approximately $71.7 million in administered costs over five years. This is a very large saving for the government and provides a clear indication to Australian taxpayers that this government is committed to using their tax dollars responsibly.

The Howard government’s achievements in aged care to date are many. Before I discuss the outcomes of this bill, I would like to remind the Senate and those opposite just how effective the Howard government has been and continues to be in this sector. The 2006-07 budget committed $108.3 million over five years for new initiatives and $311.3 million over four years to extend existing programs. The 2005-06 budget provided $320.6 million to support people with dementia and their carers. Carers are very important. I went to the launch of National Carers Week this morning; I will speak about that a little later. The sum provided in the budget includes $70.5 million to make dementia a national health priority and $207.6 million to provide more choice in respite care and better access. The 2004-05 budget committed $2.2 billion towards aged care—the largest single investment in aged care by any Australian government. In 2006-07 funding available for all community care programs totals over $1.8 billion—an increase of $200 million over that available in 2005-06.

The government have greatly increased home and community care services. We provided $928.4 million to the Home and Community Care program in 2006-07, which is an increase of $506 million, or 119 per cent, since 1995-96. We have doubled the target ratio of community places allocated annually, from 10 to 20 places for every 1,000 people over 70 years of age. In July 2006, federal cabinet gave approval for up to $30 million in new HACC funding to the states and territories to assist them to implement common arrangements and more streamlined national processes. The states will not be required to contribute additional funds in order to access the extra funds. Over 21,000 new aged-care places will be allocated over the three years from 1 July 2006, including 6,387 in the year 2006-07. With these new places, the Australian government will have allocated more than 95,200 new aged-care places between 1996 and 2007-08.

In 1995 there was no program to provide high-care support in the home. Today there are 2,575 places in the form of Extended Aged Care at Home packages. The number of Community Aged Care packages and the Extended Aged Care at Home packages available nationally has increased from 4,431 in June 1996 to 32,941 in June 2005—an increase of 643 per cent. As at 30 June 1995, there were 93.8 operational aged-care places for every 1,000 people aged 70 and over. By 30 June 2006, this had increased to 105.8 operational aged-care places for every 1,000 people aged 70 or over. This represents a 49 per cent increase in the number of operational aged-care places, from about 137,000 places in June 1995 to 204,869 on 30 June 2006.

I note Senator Webber’s concern about the staffing requirements for aged-care places to cover this increase in the number of available places, so I think it is important that I advise her of what the Howard government has done. Since 2002, the Australian government has allocated $229 million for workforce initiatives designed to increase overall staff supply. These initiatives include: assistance for 15,750 aged-care workers to access recognised education and training opportunities such as Certificate III, Certificate IV and Enrolled Nurse qualifications; the capacity for 8,000 aged-care workers to access the Workplace English Language and Literacy program; the capacity for 5,250 enrolled nurses to access recognised and approved medication and administration education and training programs; the establishment of 1,600 new nursing places at universities that demonstrate their ability to meet aged-care nursing education benchmarks; the creation of 1,000 scholarships from 2006-07, on top of the 1,000 scholarships already taken up since 2002-03, to encourage more people to enter or re-enter aged-care nursing, especially in rural and regional areas; training for 2,700 community aged-care workers primarily involved in the delivery of care to recipients of Extended Aged Care at Home packages, known as EACH and EACH dementia packages; and the inclusion of the Community Aged Care Package and the EACH and EACH dementia packages in the next census and survey of the aged-care workforce.

Having set the scene on the importance of aged care to the Howard government, I will now turn to the contents of the bill. This bill was introduced into the Senate on 13 September this year and referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, of which I am a member. The five submissions to the inquiry were all in support of the proposed amendments. There are two parts to the bill which I would like to discuss. The first is the harmonisation of aged-care and pension requirements in relation to income streams and asset disposals. The review of pricing arrangements in residential aged care, commonly known as the Hogan report, was conducted to review and identify significant challenges facing the residential aged-care sector. Professor Hogan released his report in April 2004 and proposed a range of recommendations. Option 3 of the report said:

In the longer term, the aged care means testing arrangements should be brought into line with those that obtain the age pension.

Moreover, in determining an individual’s income and assets the same gifting and deeming rules as obtained for the age pension should apply

This bill aims to implement this option and enables gifts and income streams to be treated for the purposes of the act in the same way as they are treated for the pension assets test. When a person enters residential aged care, their assets are assessed to determine whether they can be asked to contribute to the costs of their accommodation and, if so, the assessment helps them to work out how much of a contribution the aged-care provider can request.

In July 2005 the responsibility for the assets testing of new residents entering aged-care homes transferred from the approved providers of residential aged care to Centrelink and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Once a resident is in care, their income is assessed to see whether they can be asked to further contribute to the costs of their care. The government indicated they would proceed with this initiative in the 2006-07 budget and, as I have said previously, this is expected to lead to net savings of $71.7 million over five years. These savings are largely attributable to savings of costs administered by the Department of Health and Ageing. By making assets-testing arrangements for the pension and aged care the same, entry to aged-care homes for prospective residents will be made far less complex. Older Australians who can afford it will make a fairer contribution to the cost of the residential aged-care services they receive. The rules for aged-care income testing are exactly the same as those for the age pension income test. But for assets testing, the rules for aged care differ from those of the age pension in some material respects. The harmonisation amendment addresses two of those differences.

As announced in the 2006-07 budget, this amendment aligns the treatment of gifting and income streams for aged-care assets-testing purposes with the treatment of gifts and income streams for age pension assets-testing purposes. The changes are designed to simplify the interaction of the aged-care and pension arrangements, allowing greater transparency and facilitating wise financial planning for older Australians.

Currently assets gifted by prospective residents are excluded from assessment for aged-care assets testing purposes but are included in the pension assets test and may reduce the amount of age pension a person receives. The current maximum amount allowed to be gifted is $10,000 in any financial year or $30,000 over five years. These arrangements apply until 1 January 2007, so people already in care or people entering or moving between residential aged-care homes up until the end of this year will not be affected.

From 1 January 2007, people who enter residential aged care or move between homes and seek an asset assessment will have any gifts they have made from 10 May 2006 that exceed the allowable amount included in their assessment. This means that a person who has given away assets in excess of the allowable amounts is not likely to be eligible for government assistance with their accommodation costs. This measure introduces a disincentive for prospective residents of aged-care homes to rely on the taxpayer to pay for their aged-care accommodation if they have the means to pay for it themselves.

The government is not preventing people from gifting money and assets to their loved ones; instead it is putting an end to a system that results in the taxpayer subsidising the gifts that prospective residents give away prior to going into aged care. This change will result in a more sustainable system in the long term, providing savings of approximately $71.7 million of administered costs over the current financial year and in the following four years. Some investment products that generate income streams are purchased using a person’s assets. Currently, the asset amount used to buy the income stream is exempted from the aged-care assets assessment.

In the 2006-07 budget, the government announced changes to superannuation arrangements which include the removal of the 50 per cent exemption under the pension assets test for complying income streams purchased on or after 20 September 2007. A minor amendment to this aspect of the bill has been made since the bill was debated before the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs. Effectively it changed the date of implementation of this measure to 20 September 2007, to make it consistent with changes to the superannuation scheme. This is necessary because should the bill have proceeded as originally intended it would have meant that complying income streams purchased on or after 20 September 2007 would be counted towards an individual’s asset base for the purpose of the aged-care asset test, despite the fact that such products would not be commutable.

The amendment therefore ensures that not only is a person’s income stream included in their asset base, thus being consistent with the pension rules, but also it will be available to them for the purpose of paying a residential aged-care accommodation bond. So, through these amendments, from 20 September 2007 there will be no exemption under the aged-care assets test for complying income streams purchased on or after 20 September 2007. The rules for the treatment of these income streams will be aligned under both the pension and aged-care assets tests.

The government has listened to feedback from stakeholders and will now continue the exemption under the aged-care assets test for all complying income streams purchased before 20 September 2007. As the aged-care assets test applies only on entry to an aged-care home or moving to another home, existing residents will not be affected by these changes while they remain in the same aged-care home.

The second part of this bill deals with the aged-care assessment teams. The role of ACATs is to comprehensively assess the care needs of frail older Australians with complex care needs and assist them to access the most appropriate care services available. Under the Aged Care Act 1997, residential respite care is limited to 63 days per financial year. However, at present, only the secretary of the department may increase the maximum days allowed by periods of 21 days, where there is a need to do so, such as carer stress or absence, or because of the severity of the care recipient’s condition. Currently, aged-care assessment team members assess the merits of respite care extensions but, unlike other care services, do not have the delegated authority to approve any extensions.

The amendment to the act will allow the secretary to delegate to ACAT members the secretary’s powers to extend the maximum number of days per year on which a person may be approved for residential respite care. The purpose of the change is to remove any uncertainty about the role of the aged-care assessment teams in this process. Coming from a rural area, I must say how important this will be to our aged-care facilities. On many occasions when a person is about to enter into residential care, they access the respite centre for their 14 days. The fact that they can now have an extension may just be what the carer needs and what that person needs to be able to settle in and enjoy the surroundings. This will make the transition period so much easier. For anyone who has had to do it, it is a very difficult thing to decide that you can no longer care for your elderly relative and that the big decision has to be made. I think the extension to the number of respite days is really going to help those people with that problem. I certainly commend the government for moving in this direction.

As I mentioned before, I have just attended the launch of National Carers Week, which is being held this week. I have been involved with the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs looking at the new Commonwealth, state and territory disability services plan, and we have had a large number of witnesses who are carers coming to speak to us. These people may be carers of young people, but so many were older people wishing to retire but still looking after their sons and daughters aged 50 or 55 and wondering just what was going to happen. The role of carers is just so important, and the fact is that we have 2.6 million carers. (Time expired)

Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens support the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 as a governmental response to some of the recommendations proposed in the Hogan review in 2004. Today I want to highlight two areas in which the aged-care sector is not adequately dealing with the specific needs of two particular communities. One of those areas was highlighted in the Hogan review—that is, people who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The other area is people who are in same-sex relationships and members of the gay and lesbian community. These are two areas where much can be done by government to improve the capacity of the aged-care sector to deal with the specific needs of these two communities.

I will deal firstly with the issue of people who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Back in 1992 the government commissioned a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare entitled Projections of older immigrants: people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, 1996-2026, Australia. It reported that the number of older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds was expected to increase by 66 per cent over a 15-year period, while the Australian born population was expected to increase by only 23 per cent. The report said that by 2026 it was projected that one in four people over the age of 80 would be from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The government has a number of different programs that deal with these issues in aged care, but there continues to be concern expressed by a number of ethnic communities about the need for an effective, over-reaching strategy to deal with the growing number of people from these communities who require the services of the aged-care sector. The Greens share these concerns and have heard them raised many times by people from particular ethnic communities about whether or not their needs are being met.

The challenges for older people going into various care facilities and also for those people providing the care primarily stem from the difficulties that people experience in suddenly being in a different culture, in a different environment with different attitudes, different food and, of course, a different language. The Hogan report dealt with this issue and said that there were difficulties faced by even some of the most highly educated multilingual people. The Hogan report said:

Older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are more likely to experience language reversion—that is, to forget their acquired English—if they have a cognitive impairment. This may increase demand for alternative aged-care services and may increase the complexity and cost of those services.

That is dealing with the fact that, as people become older, they may forget the English language skills that they have acquired whilst they have been living here in Australia and may revert to using the language of their childhood. The issue is to do with making sure that the aged-care facilities and the people in those services are able to meet the needs of those people who lose their English skills in that process and begin to speak in a language that other people may not be able to understand.

These cultural and communication difficulties not only detrimentally affect the older people themselves but also impact on families, friends and the support networks and on the capacity of the service to provide those services. The Hogan report discusses evidence that it concludes strongly suggests that people from diverse language and cultural backgrounds currently underutilise aged-care services. This may be because they are not able to get their special needs catered for or it may be because they come from a community where some of the aged-care facilities that we have in Australia are unfamiliar to them and they are not as comfortable in them as others.

The difficulties specific to ethnic communities in Australia have been further complicated by the general patterns that we see within the aged-care sector. The push toward the privatisation of the aged-care sector has resulted in changes that compound the challenges for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as they enter aged care. I have spoken previously in the chamber about how the privatisation policies of the government in the aged-care sector have led to widespread concerns about quality as well as issues with respect to low wages for staff, staff shortages and lack of appropriate professional development training for people working in the sector. When you have staff who are working under increased pressure, it is little wonder that some corners are cut and that the special requirements of some older Australians are inadequately met and dealt with.

In a conversation that I had recently with the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, they spoke about the overall workforce shortages that we see in the aged-care sector. When we are dealing with these issues about pay rates and conditions for staff in the aged-care sector, we need to recognise that many aged-care facilities are already having difficulty in getting appropriately trained staff to fill positions. If they then want to ensure that their staff have had cultural awareness training or are familiar with working with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, that will further compound their difficulty in finding experienced staff. It is particularly a problem in remote and regional parts of Australia, where, again, workforce shortages may mean that those staff that you can get do not have that experience of cross-cultural awareness training and familiarity in working with people from a whole lot of different backgrounds.

One approach we often see is that government programs deal with this area. As I mentioned, there are a number of them. Sometimes we find that they are meeting in particular the needs of the larger or more established ethnic communities here in Australia—those long-established communities for which there are large numbers—and they have their needs addressed in that way. I have received a number of representations from people who come from smaller communities or newly emerging communities who are concerned that the needs of their particular community and the older Australians in their community are not being as well met in the aged-care sector as are those of the longer and more established immigrant communities in Australia. The government needs to look at and monitor the changing needs that come about as result of the different fluxes or waves of immigration that we have to Australia and to ensure that we have services that meet the needs of these changing cultural and linguistic groups and that there are resources for those smaller groups, who otherwise can just fall through the cracks in terms of having their needs addressed.

So the Greens call on the government to improve workforce planning strategies to develop widespread staff training in cross-cultural awareness and care strategies for all providers. The Commonwealth could do a range of different things, such as offering incentives to service providers that do give language and cross-cultural awareness training to their staff working in the aged-care sector. There are a number of things that the government can do. We call on the government to look at this area to make sure that it is doing proper monitoring of whether the needs of people from particular communities are being addressed. My understanding is that currently the way in which that is measured in the aged-care sector is not about the needs of a particular community. When the government looks at the numbers of people in facilities, it looks at them overall, asking, ‘How many people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are found in our aged care and are using aged-care services?’ rather than asking, ‘Of the people from Mauritius or from the Italian community, how many of those are able to have their needs met?’ So proper mechanisms for being able to monitor and understand whether or not particular ethnic communities are using aged-care services are a more helpful way for governments to assess whether or not they are adequately meeting the needs of these particular communities.

So, in looking at these issues of standards for service providers in planning, resource allocation, monitoring, workforce standards and ongoing research into changing community needs, they are all important. Increased financial assistance will also be required to meet ever-increasing needs. We talk about one in four people over the age of 80 in 2026 being from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. It is clearly a growing problem, and there needs to be an investment in ensuring that we can meet those needs.

The other particular community who are currently raising concerns about the aged-care sector not dealing appropriately with their needs are those people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex community. I have a proposed amendment that has been circulated in the chamber that deals with this issue. One part goes to the objects of this bill—which talk about the need to ensure that people are not discriminated against in accessing aged-care facilities, on a range of different considerations—and adds into that the issue of sexual orientation, to ensure that people are not discriminated against in aged-care facilities because of their sexual orientation. I am hoping to receive support for that amendment so that we can rule out this area of discrimination. It is an issue that people in the gay and lesbian community have been paying increasing attention to in ensuring that facilities do meet their needs, and it is an area where unfortunately there are many sad stories about older Australians trying to access services and not having their needs met, not having their sexual orientation accepted by those facilities. The fact that we currently allow for aged-care facilities to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation is something that we can fix and should be fixing here today.

I have one friend who with her partner applied to 18 different nursing homes—and she made it quite clear in the applications that they were a same-sex partnership—and only heard back from one of them. There are many other stories like this throughout the sector. There are reports within the gay media about discrimination or homophobic attacks that people have experienced from fellow residents or from insensitive or poorly trained staff. There have been reports of nursing homes run by religious organisations bound by doctrines denouncing a homosexual lifestyle that also create great difficulties for people in these communities. There was an article about this last year in SX News in Sydney that went on to say:

... returning to the closet in old age is a reality for many. Stories abound of people who have been able to live openly throughout their adult lives, going into retirement villages or nursing homes and having to fabricate stories about their life, the death of their wife, and similar reasons why they do not have a family support network like other residents.

This is something that we would like to see changed. That is why I am proposing this amendment, which goes to the objects of the proposed act. The objects of the proposed act are ‘to facilitate access to aged-care services by those who need them, regardless of race, culture, language, gender, economic circumstance or geographic location’, and the Greens amendment adds ‘sexual orientation’ into this as one of the areas on which people should not be discriminated against in their access to aged-care services.

The second part of the proposed amendment arose from the experience of someone I know who was seeking to have herself and her partner entered into a nursing home facility. They were looking at their assets held collectively to see whether their family home was considered exempt from the assets test, in the same way that family homes of other people are. The advice she received was that because of her circumstances—that is, she is in a same-sex couple relationship—the family home would not be treated as exempt when they were looking at assets. I ask whether the minister is able to deal with that issue. When I looked through the legislation to try to find out why this may have happened in the circumstances of this couple, I looked at section 44.10(2) of the act, which says:

In working out the value at a particular time of the assets of a person who is or was a * homeowner then, disregard the value of a home that, at the time, was occupied by the partner ... of the person ...

That is the issue we are dealing with in this bill—that is, the exemption of the family home from assets. I then looked up the definition of ‘partner’ in the Aged Care Act, which states:

“partner”, in relation to a person, means the other *member of a couple of which the person is also a member.

I then looked further, at the definition of what a ‘member of a couple’ is, which is found in section 44.11 of the act. It says:

“member of a couple” means:

(a) a person who is legally married to another person, and is not living separately and apart from the person on a permanent basis; or

(b) a person who lives with another person in a marriage-like relationship, although not legally married to the other person.

To me that could include people living in a same-sex relationship who live ‘in a marriage-like relationship’, but are ‘not legally married to the other person’. The advice my friend received was that her circumstances did not fit into this category, but I would appreciate hearing from the minister about that. To me the wording could include same-sex couples, but it is unclear. So what this second part of the proposed Australian Greens amendment seeks to do is to make it clear that this includes same-sex couples. I will be interested to hear from the minister and the government on this issue. My reading of it is that, at the moment, it could include same-sex couples. I do not know whether the government or the minister is able to give an indication of how that has been interpreted in other circumstances.

The understanding of my friend is that it was quite clear from the forms and the face-to-face interviews that she had had with people that it did not include people in same-sex relationships; indeed, she thought it also may not include all de facto couples. If the minister could clarify that, it would be really helpful. The proposed Greens amendment is just about making clear that it should apply to same-sex couples and that the family home of same-sex couples should be exempted from the assets test, in the same way that it is for a heterosexual couple.

Those are the two areas that I have wanted to focus on in relation to what needs to occur to ensure that the needs of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are met by our existing aged-care sector and also that people from gay and lesbian communities in same-sex relationships have their needs met within the aged-care sector.

I wish to conclude by saying that the Greens believe the skills, life experience and diversity of older people enrich our entire community. The government must play a central role in the enhanced provision, regulation and support of aged-care services. A one-size-fits-all approach does not suffice. Just as in the broader community, diversity must be respected and any particular concerns of a diverse community must be adequately dealt with, older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds must be respected, and this government must urgently address the needs of this community in the aged-care sector. Similarly, issues related to the sexual diversity of older people must also be dealt with in the area of aged care to ensure that all forms of discrimination against same-sex couples are eliminated.

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

In the few minutes I have I want to begin some remarks on the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006 and to commend the government and the Minister for Ageing for generating in this bill a very satisfactory solution to a fairly difficult problem. Residential aged care has the potential, as we all know, to be extremely controversial. Issues concerning the eligibility of citizens for subsidised places in aged-care facilities and issues concerning gifting arrangements and their effect on things like accommodation bonds generate great reactions from individuals and their families when those individuals seek to move into aged-care facilities in Australia.

Given that background, what the minister has done in this case is produce a piece of legislation that neatly solves a number of problems, greatly simplifies the arrangements whereby individuals can both seek pensions and seek subsidised places in aged-care facilities, and incidentally at the same time achieve a significant saving to the taxpayer from the way in which these arrangements are administered. So the minister deserves to be warmly commended by the Senate for his efforts in this area. He was launched into controversy almost from the beginning of his tenure as minister, based on a number of concerns about issues in aged-care facilities around Australia. He has obviously sat down and carefully thought through the issues and produced a piece of legislation that neatly addresses all of those issues simultaneously.

These arrangements will make a saving of some $70 million over the next four or five financial years from the budgets of the Department of Health and Ageing and of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Those changes are made not only with those savings in mind but in a way that has garnered and maintained community support. The harmonising of gifting arrangements and income tests as between eligibility for pensions and eligibility for subsidised places in aged-care facilities is an extremely important part of that process. Again I want to say that the minister has done an exceptionally good job in being able to steer the issues through those difficult waters.

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs began an inquiry into this bill a few weeks ago expecting to encounter a great deal of opposition and concern from different parts of the community. The reality is that very few organisations chose to comment on the matter, and those that did indicated quite clearly that they supported the changes being proposed. I want to put on the record my appreciation to the minister for his hard work in delivering that kind of outcome and making the work of the Senate community affairs committee that much simpler as a result of his hard work before the bill was presented to the Senate. I think we have here a good piece of legislation that will serve the Australian community well and which will make it much simpler for people to seek access to aged-care facilities in the future.

Debate interrupted.