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 and Webber today relating to aged care.

I should say that they were responses, not answers, in my motion. I have to say it was a particularly poor effort by the Minister for Ageing today. I am sure Senator Webber will go to the substance of the answer to her question, but even in the question that I asked, which went to the issue of fire safety, the only reason the minister got onto answering the question was because he was called to order by our leader in the Senate.

He started off by filling in time talking about something that happened in 1994. Yes, we did do an inquiry into aged care in 1994, but let us remember that is 12 years ago and to rely on something that occurred 12 years ago as a defence for what the government is currently doing is a pretty long bow to draw. Yes, the Labor government in 1994 was concerned about aged care; yes, we undertook an inquiry; and yes, we started the process of delivering the response to that inquiry. For the minister to say that something that happened in 1994 was the reason that we are in this mess and therefore it was of course always the Labor Party’s fault, I have to say, is a pretty poor defence. Senator Santoro also accused me—and he does at every possible occasion—of scaremongering. I refute that allegation absolutely and I will continue to do so.

The simple fact is that there are 217 residential aged care facilities out of nearly 3,000 in Australia that do not comply with the 1999 Commonwealth fire safety standards. Many senators in this place know this story: there was a discussion with the aged care sector and agreement between the aged care sector and the government that there needed to be improvement in building standards and fire safety. It was an agreed position. The Labor Party agreed with that position. The government allocated $3,500 for every resident in every aged care facility in Australia in order to achieve that goal. Labor agreed with that as well, but Labor at that point said, ‘What are the processes that this government is putting in place to ensure that that money is spent on improving building standards and fire safety?’ That is where the policy flaw in the government’s proposal is: there is no assurance that the money allocated, the $513.3 million, will end up being spent on improving building standards and fire safety.

I think the minister himself said, ‘The overwhelming majority has been spent wisely.’ That is simply not good enough. When you spend over half a billion dollars and you come to the view that the overwhelming majority was spent wisely, the taxpayers of Australia do not think that is good enough. We need to have an acquittal process where we can be assured that the money that was allocated by this government is actually spent improving the safety of older, vulnerable Australians who live in residential aged care facilities in Australia.

I ask the question: how does the minister know that the overwhelming majority of that money was spent wisely? There is no process for the minister to understand how much was spent and where. What is going to happen to those facilities where the money was not spent wisely? It is not good planning. It was a good policy with a bad structure when it was implemented because we were never quite sure that the money was going to end up where it was intended.

We still do not know what is going to happen to those 217 facilities. Some apparently are going to have a review. I will have a good, close look at the Hansard to find out what the minister did actually say. But I am very concerned about the three—and I will check again with the Hansard—facilities in Australia who refuse to engage with the government, who refuse to tell the government what they are going to do in order to meet the 1999 fire safety compliance, and the government are not doing anything about it in order to ensure that money was spent wisely. (Time expired)

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whenever Labor get up and talk about aged care, their concerns and their tears are crocodile tears; their comments are nothing short of hollow and hypocritical. All you have to do is look back at Labor’s record on aged care, and it was nothing short of disgraceful. Senator McLucas talks about taxpayers not thinking that our system is worth the money they are paying. Let me tell you: they were very critical of Labor’s record. When they had the Gregory report back in 1994, it found that 13 per cent of nursing homes did not meet relevant fire authority standards. That is what Senator McLucas is complaining about now. Thirteen per cent of nursing homes then did not meet relevant fire authority standards; 11 per cent of nursing homes did not meet the relevant health authority standards; 70 per cent of nursing homes did not meet the relevant outcome standards; and 51 per cent of nursing home residents were living in rooms with three or more beds. That was the state of nursing home care when we came into government. I visited nursing home after nursing home and I saw situations that were totally unacceptable and intolerable.

The then minister, Mrs Bishop, when she took over aged care, closed 200 nursing homes. When I was shadow minister for aged care I used to lie awake at night worrying about how you would actually close nursing homes, accommodate those people while you closed them, find somewhere for them to go and relocate them. But she did it, with 200 of them. How many did Labor close before that? A big, fat zero—none. They were just full of empty rhetoric. There was no action and no substance. The Prime Minister mentioned that just today about their new leader—all style and no substance. They were all style and no substance then and they are all style and no substance today. They come in here criticising what we have done and the enormous changes that we have put into aged care and they fail to look at their record, as I said, of 13 per cent of their nursing homes failing to meet relevant fire authority standards and the other standards I listed.

What have we done? Under a number of ministers, we have put into place a certification process to ensure that aged care homes reach specific building standards. We have introduced a complaints resolution scheme and a free call number so that, if any resident, family member or staff member has a concern or complaint, it can be raised anonymously. We introduced the position of the Commissioner for Complaints, who has a role in mediating and negotiating outcomes as a result of complaints. We have required aged care facilities to meet these high standards and we have actually publicised those that do not. We have made people aware of when nursing homes fail to comply.

In addition, what we have seen is the creation of a role for a new aged care commissioner, an Office for Aged Care Quality and Compliance, a rigorous new complaints investigation procedure, compulsory reporting of abuse and legal protections for whistleblowers. What we have seen is Minister Santo Santoro taking very quick action when we saw the totally unacceptable abuse of some older people in nursing homes, particularly the sexual abuse of older people in nursing homes. He actually instituted additional funding to monitor this. But we never hear Labor talk about that.

When I was shadow minister and we saw the introduction of a bond for hostels and then the building and upgrading of hostels, I gave credit to Labor where credit was due. I always criticised them where criticism was due, but I always gave them credit. We never once hear the shadow minister come in here and say anything about the enormous changes we have put in place—the innovative programs, the new transition care programs for older people going from nursing homes to hostels and the programs to establish additional places outside of aged care facilities when people want to live in their own homes so they have choice about ageing in place. They do not talk about the new measures for strengthening accommodation bonds paid by older people to make sure that those are protected. None of those positive things are mentioned. They do not talk about dementia being made a national priority. Labor can only criticise. Labor is all about style and nothing about substance.

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

Not in direct response to a question in question time this afternoon but, rather, as an aside, Senator Abetz was justifying some of the comments made by Senator Santoro in response to a direct question—not a criticism, but a direct question about what was happening in aged care. I really hope that Hansard picked up the comment from Senator Abetz. His response was that, in his answer, the minister was contextualising. I thought that summed it up. What happens whenever people from this side of the chamber ask specific questions about issues—and it is particularly in aged care, but it could be justifiable across any other responses that we try to obtain—is that, instead of listening to the question and working out what the response is, which sometimes they may not know, and attempting to provide a response, they go into a litany of history about what happened in the past and in particular what happened in previous Labor governments.

Whilst that is interesting—and I think Senator Santoro actually used in one of his responses the words that something would be ‘of interest’ to people in the Senate—and whilst the historical context to most responses is interesting, basically what we are trying to achieve in parliament through the parliamentary questions process is to ask questions about now and the future and sometimes about what has not been done in the recent past. It does not seem to me that it should be too difficult to try to obtain some particular information.

What we were asking about today was fire safety standards. This has been an ongoing issue. In fact, in the historical lesson which we received we found out that the issue of fire safety in aged care homes has been around for a very long time. It is not untoward for people to ask about—particularly as we tend to find out information from the minister by media release—or try to find out about what is happening with regard to the figures that we have been told of through the media release on homes that have not met the standards.

In my short time in this place these questions have been regularly asked at the Senate estimates process. It has been an ongoing issue. The response which came out of an industry discussion around what could be achieved to upgrade buildings and facilities, in particular in terms of safety, was a particular funding allocation, which we actually celebrated. Contrary to what Senator Patterson said in her comments, we actually acknowledged that giving a particular line of finance was a good thing. What we are trying to find out now, though, is what is happening. In terms of the over 200 homes which have been publicly identified as not meeting the expectation for fire safety, what is occurring to ensure that they do? That would not seem to be such a difficult question, but we cannot receive a response.

Subsequently, we heard again from the minister about a new and I think very positive initiative—the website that has been produced by his department. I am not quite sure how we were supposed to know about that website, because I have not seen that press release yet. My understanding is that it was announced with great fanfare in this place last week. Somehow no-one from this side of the chamber seemed to be aware that its launch was going on. I congratulate the minister on launching a new website process. I think that is useful.

The website will actually tell the people of Petrie, Longman and other places in the area where I happen to have my office why, when the target ratio that has been proclaimed proudly by the government—again, by press release—of 88 beds per 1,000 citizens over 70, the number of accessible beds in their part of the world, a particularly beautiful part of the world, falls short by over 160.

The website is a good initiative. It is good to be able to go to it and look at what is available. But a website does not give you a bed. It would be more useful if we could have beds provided. We acknowledge that the government has spent money on aged care, but it is our job to ensure that we hold the government to account for the wide-ranging promises it makes to the community, see that those promises are kept. You cannot claim that you are meeting the aged-care needs of the community when in particular regions of my own state those ratios are not being met. We do applaud positive initiatives, but we think that our job as parliamentarians is to ensure that the government is held to account. And when I visit that website, which I will, I hope that every facility is named. (Time expired)

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

I think we should be clear that there is a campaign going on here. It is a campaign designed to excite fear in older Australians in particular that in some way services to older Australians are at risk, in decline, not adequate, and that rigorous standards are not available to protect the people who access those services. Let us be clear: no matter what regime one establishes, no matter how many services are provided, no matter how much money is pumped into a particular sector, it is always possible to find someone somewhere who does not meet those service standards. The best questions to ask are: to what extent have standards lifted, to what extent are standards falling short, and where can the Australian community find evidence that those things are occurring?

It needs to be said absolutely clearly that the standard of aged-care facilities available to older Australians today is vastly better than it was 10 years ago—immeasurably better than it was then. I acknowledge Senator Moore’s concession that that is the case, that there have certainly been improvements and that she welcomes new initiatives. That is fantastic. But it is important when engaging in this debate that we explain to Australians that that is the case and not mislead them into thinking that there are serious problems across Australia because in some homes, in some facilities across Australia, those standards are not met.

I accept that, in debates of this kind, it is the job of Senator McLucas and others to draw attention to weaknesses in the system—but only as long as they do not mislead people into thinking that Australian aged-care facilities are facing some kind of crisis. After listening to Senator McLucas, one could be forgiven for believing that there is a crisis in Australian aged care when, in fact, in fairness, if there has ever been a crisis in Australian aged care, it took place 10 or more years ago. That is when the inquiry to which reference was made in question time today was set up which exposed the dangers and weaknesses in Australian aged care. That was the point at which there was a crisis in aged care in Australia, and that crisis has eased dramatically as a result of the actions of this government.

We have put in place measures with respect to fire safety, which was the subject of specific questions today in question time, and they have, first of all, set a benchmark that did not exist before. Today, some 91 per cent of services in Australia have provided evidence that they meet that benchmark, and I regret that there are still nine per cent that do not. But I think it is quite wrong to suggest that it is impossible for members of this parliament to understand what is going on with that other nine per cent. As the Minister for Ageing said today in question time, those homes which have not yet met that standard have provided time frames for building works in which, they say, they will meet that standard. Of 110 homes around Australia that were identified for potential review under section 39.4 of the Aged Care Act, 59 have been assessed and provided with a detailed report on the required fire safety improvements.

As I said, there will always be cases where those standards are not met because people simply do not have the wherewithal, or the conviction or commitment, to make sure that their homes meet particular standards, but the point is that the trend is very clearly and very convincingly towards meeting those standards. There is no question about that. The situation has improved dramatically, and I believe that the government and particularly the minister should be given credit for that. Getting people information is what that website is all about. It provides people with up-to-date information on what is happening in their own region.

Senator Moore is calling for more aged-care beds. We can always do with more beds. I suspect you could double the number of beds in Australia—as indeed this government effectively has—and still find that there was a shortage of beds in some areas and in some categories of care. But again, looking at where we have come from, we can see a huge improvement, and that is the message which will come out of this debate today. There is still some way to go. But if I were a person needing an aged-care facility, I would rather be in an aged-care facility today than 10 years ago, when standards were obviously far inferior to what they are today.

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

I must say I was a little dismayed by the answer that Senator Santoro initially gave me to the question that I asked him today. Whilst I acknowledge and appreciate that he did provide some additional information after question time, his somewhat dismissive attitude—that I could not expect him to know about every aged-care facility in this country, all the thousands of them—was disappointing, to say the least. I do not expect Senator Santoro as the Minister for Ageing to know about every aged-care facility in this country, but I do expect him to know about each and every one that fails its audit or where the audit report shows there are some significant issues in that facility. If he does not know that, if he does not have time to read those reports, perhaps he should spend more time here and less time in Texas and actually do the job that he is paid to do. Surely, if there are thousands of them then really we should have a sense that there is a crisis—and there has not been a significant easing of the crisis, as claimed by those opposite. I do think it is the minister’s job to know about the audit reports. He seemed to know about the audit report on my grandmother’s aged-care facility, but he knew nothing about the audit report on the Greenmount facility, an audit report which the community in Western Australia has known about for quite some time.

This is not an issue that suddenly came up yesterday; this issue has been known in the community in Western Australia for weeks. If it is too hard for Senator Santoro to find out about that significant aged-care facility then perhaps he should give the job to someone else. I would also say that it is, perhaps, the last refuge of scoundrels to dredge back 12 years. If that is the best excuse the minister can come up with then it really is time for him to move on. I have raised my concerns about the Melbourne facility that my grandmother lives in. It is an issue that Senator Santoro is well aware of; it is one of the facilities that Senator Santoro has given his personal guarantee is going to be fixed and that everyone in the facility is going to get top quality care. I am not interested in what was happening 12 years ago. We are all prepared to concede that, with the ageing population—and we all talk about the ageing population in Australia—aged care is a much more significant priority for political parties on both sides than it was some time ago. Twelve years ago, my grandmother was living in her own home, on her own, fully self-sufficient. Her youngest grandchild was six. That is how ridiculous it is to go back 12 years to find some kind of comparison. If the minister is going to herald all the supposed great achievements of this government in the last 10 years then he should fess up to the problems, too. Do not dig back 12 years—fess up to the failings as well as trying to herald supposed achievements.

As for Senator Humphries coming in here today and saying that there has been an aged-care crisis but it has ‘eased dramatically’, I wish him luck explaining that to the people in the south-west suburbs of Perth. I do not think a 500-bed shortfall in the south-west suburbs of Perth is a crisis ‘easing dramatically’. Tell that to the 500 families that are looking for a safe facility—a facility that is going to look safely after their valued older parent or grandparent, be fully accredited, have the fire safety standards it is meant to, give them their medication on time, give them their medication appropriately, look after their hydration and give them all the critical care and pain management that they need.

According to the government’s own ratio, there is a 500-bed shortage in the south-west metropolitan corridor in Perth. That is 500 families that are having to look elsewhere to find someone to look after their loved ones. That is not an easing of the crisis. That is not a dramatic easing in these times of economic prosperity. It is absolutely outrageous to come in here and not know the state of the homes that are failing their audit reports, or to claim that things have eased dramatically when there are still significant older, established suburbs in Perth that do not have the aged-care beds that their families and residents so desperately need. And the only excuse this government can come up with is that, apparently, in 1994 it was worse. That is absolutely pathetic. If that is the best the minister can do then, as I have said, it is either time for someone else to have a go or it is time for Senator Santoro to stay here and stay away from Texas. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.