Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy President. I, too, rise to speak on this matter of public urgency brought before the chamber by Senator Lines—yourself. Frankly, all this motion does is play politics with the issue. There is absolutely no substance behind it—none whatsoever. What we saw in this chamber today in question time, and also yesterday, was nothing but a disgrace by those opposite. That same attitude is reflected in the wording of this motion. You're playing politics with people's lives. There is nothing that you will not seek to gain mileage out of.

So let's look at the facts. When Labor left office, total aged-care spending was $13.3 billion. This year, it's $22.6 billion, increasing to $25.4 billion by 2022-23. This is an increase of $1 billion a year. I repeat: an increase of $1 billion a year. Even your mates over at the ABC have fact-checked these claims and have in fact disproven them. In addition to this, there is something quite amazing about your claims. When we went to the election last year, you took a suite of measures to the Australian people which would have resulted in $387 billion in new taxes. Yet even though you had a plan to increase taxes, you had no plan for aged care—plans for $387 billion in new taxes, yet nothing for the aged-care system in this nation, which you continue to deride. You had no plan for home care places, no plan for the aged-care workforce, no plan for residential aged care, yet you come into this chamber and pretend to claim the high ground. You have suddenly realised that we have an aged-care system in this country. And what have you done since the election? You have kept quiet on aged care, and you still have no plan and you still have no commitment.

It is this government who have increased funding for aged care, it is this government who have come to the table with a plan for aged care and it is this government who have admitted that we can and should do better. That is why this government, the Morrison government, have initiated the royal commission into aged care, and that is why we have responded to the findings as soon as issues have been identified. We haven't waited; we've responded as soon as those issues have been identified. And each and every year under this government home care packages have increased and residential care places have increased; the total funding is up. When you left office there were 60,308 home care packages, but this will increase by 170 per cent, to 164,135 places by 2022-23. Corresponding funding will also increase, by 258 per cent, over the same period. The number of people in the National Prioritisation System for Home Care Packages has also decreased, by 20 per cent, over the previous 12-month reporting period.

You also speak about the aged-care workforce. Well, our commitment to this area has been clear. Work continues to progress through the Aged Care Workforce Industry Council, and we'll continue to progress reforms and invest in the critical skills that our aged-care sector needs. Where is the commitment of those opposite? In every area, in every portfolio, you have dithered, you have failed. Your record is equally dismal across each and every area. The interim report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was highly critical of the inaction of successive governments towards the aged-care industry. We acknowledge that, and we are actioning as quickly as we can the recommendations that have been made already. Labor has remained silent on any commitment to aged care since the election, providing no additional funding and showing that it's a total hypocrisy. Our commitment is unwavering, and it's time you actually came to the table with a plan. It's time you actually worked with us for the benefit of all older Australians.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise today to speak on the urgency motion moved by yourself, Madam Deputy President Lines, regarding the Morrison government's failure to protect older Australians in residential aged care from COVID-19, from this pandemic. But before I do so I want to do something that has been a bit missed already by some senators in this debate, and that's to acknowledge the more than 300 Australians living in residential aged care who have lost their lives, because ultimately it is them we are talking about here today—more than 300 Australians who've passed away. Our thoughts are with them and with their families, because it never should have been this way. Many of these Australians have died alone, unable to say goodbye in the dignified manner they had the right to expect.

Just imagine not being able to say goodbye to your spouse, to your parent, to your child, to your friend or to whoever it is in there—not being able to say goodbye, not being able to hold their hand, not being able to look them in the eye, not being able to comfort them in those last moments of grief. It's devastating; it's devastating to even think about. These are some of our most vulnerable Australians, and this government failed in delivering a plan to keep them safe during this pandemic. And it's not just a failure of these times. It's a failure built on years and years of successive failures—reports sitting on shelves gathering dust year after year; cuts after cuts in federal budgets, packaged up and designed to look like something else, but the budget papers do not lie. Australia's aged-care system was in crisis under this government long before the pandemic. And let's be clear: this is their responsibility. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility. The government regulates the aged-care sector and it funds that aged-care sector. Whilst the government is not responsible for the pandemic, and it's not responsible for a global economic downturn—sure—but it is responsible for our aged-care system and it is responsible for the failure to prepare that sector for what we've just seen.

This Prime Minister has not genuinely taken responsibility. We have passing of the buck, which we see with him all the time. But his hands are all over these failures as well. He was the Treasurer who cut $1.7 million from the aged-care budget. He has been there as funding has been slashed and safeguards have been removed. He has been there with changes to the workforce. The fact is that he can't spin his way out of this one. He can't spin his way out of the things we've heard at the royal commission.

The recent three-day hearing in August revealed some terrible truths that the Morrison government and the Prime Minister need to own up to. These are truths that show they weren't prepared to handle the pandemic, truths that show they did not have a plan—the plan they needed. These are the truths that show that face masks should have been made compulsory earlier and that basic issues around PPE should have been addressed. These are the facts outlined, but we don't see responsibility from our Prime Minister. We see him stepping away from that responsibility and seeking to blame anyone but himself. It's not enough for those families. It shouldn't be enough for any of us. The Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for the failings of his government, for the failings of the sector he funds and regulates and for the failure to protect older Australians during this pandemic.

The saddest thing about these tragedies is that perhaps with better planning they could have been avoided. We saw what happened at Newmarch House. We saw what happened at the Dorothy Henderson Lodge. Yet the Prime Minister has told us that the outbreak in Victoria could not have been anticipated or foreshadowed. But it was. It was foreshadowed for the government and it was foreshadowed for the Prime Minister. There was an opportunity at that point to step in with a better plan. They should have been better prepared in an area that is their responsibility, but they weren't.

We've heard today, during this debate and others, members from the government side saying that Labor, by asking questions about these successive tragedies, are politicising the issue. What kind of joke is that? What kind of an accusation is that? What is the point of this place and this chamber if not to scrutinise the government for the things they are responsible for? What is the point of this place if we are not here to ask questions of the executive, if we are not here to get to the bottom of government failings? Do government senators honestly believe it is not our place to hold the government to account, to ask questions about failures for our most vulnerable Australians? How dare these senators say that we can't ask these questions. That is disrespectful of the role of this chamber and the role of senators.

I've also heard senators on the other side look back further into the past, but the reality is that you guys got the keys to the Lodge—you've had them for seven years—this is your responsibility. These seven years of failures are your responsibility. You're on that side of the chamber so step up to it. When you can't step up to it, take responsibility for it. Australians are scared. They are terrified that what they are seeing, even if they don't live in Victoria, is coming to their homes and to their loved ones in aged care. You have an opportunity now to fix it for them. But you also have to take responsibility, stop deflecting and just fix it. (Time expired)

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this motion; however, the point needs to be made that the aged-care crisis we're facing hasn't just been seven years in the making. Whilst the systemic issues facing the aged-care sector have been compounded under the coalition government, the well-known issues plaguing the sector find their genesis in the Aged Care Act itself, which was enacted 23 years ago under the Howard government. The alarm bells, raised particularly by the nursing community, were ringing loudly even then but were ignored by the government of the day. The chronic underfunding, underskilling and underpayment of staff, with no mandatory minimum staffing requirements, no minimum training qualifications and no financial transparency as to how $21 billion paid to the sector has been spent, has been allowed to occur under successive Liberal and Labor governments. For example, the incentive to deskill the staffing mix in residential aged care was identified way back in 2011 by the Productivity Commission in its report Caring for older Australians. This was whilst Labor was in government. The Productivity Commission reported then:

… under current arrangements, providers in seeking to minimise costs have an incentive … to employ a high proportion of lower qualified (and therefore less expensive) care workers. A high proportion of lower qualified workers means that nurses working in aged care facilities can experience excessive workloads where they spend a large proportion of their time on administrative tasks (as they are effectively managers) rather than on caring. This, in turn, can drive nurses away from aged care …

Nothing has changed since 2011. There have been successive reports, reviews and inquiries into the broken aged-care sector, and still nothing substantive has changed. Vague terms in the act around residential aged care maintaining an 'adequate number of appropriately skilled staff' to ensure the needs of care recipients are met have resulted in nursing staff numbers, skills and the level of experience and expertise being systematically reduced. Personal care workers are run off their feet carrying on the role of nurses, and the care for residents has suffered very much. The Aged Care Act, as it currently sits, is not fit for purpose. It never was, and urgent amendments need to be legislated.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Labor Party for moving this urgency motion today and allowing me to present a few facts rather than headlines and shallow speculation. It is a fact that spending in aged care, under the coalition government, has increased since Labor left government, and it will have almost doubled by the financial year 2022-23. Even the ABC's Fact Check has recognised that there has been an increase in spending. It is a fact that Labor took no policy to the last election to provide additional funding for home-care places, for aged-care quality or for workforces in mainstream residential aged care. It is a fact that, under our coalition government, home-care packages, residential-care places and funding have gone up. Home-care packages are up from just over 60,000 when Labor was in government in 2012-13 to over 164,000 by 2022-23. At the same time, funding will have gone up 258 per cent due to the growth in high-level packages. As at the end of March this year, 98.5 per cent of Australians waiting for a home-care package at their assessed level had been offered support. There has been a significant reduction in waiting times for people in urgent need of care.

It is a fact that our government recognises that packages for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those living in regional, rural and remote communities need targeted and unique care. We targeted $10 million for the Aged Care Regional, Rural and Remote Infrastructure Grant. We've committed to the forward estimates to 2022-23 funding of over $238 million for the Rural, Regional and Other Special Needs Building Fund. We've provided $258 million specifically for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program.

It is a fact that the industry-led Aged Care Workforce Industry Council was formed under our watch in May last year, and we are working to develop and support career pathways for aged care. It's a fact that our government is investing an initial $23 million to introduce a serious incident response scheme for residential care, and this will commence from July next year. It is also a fact that, on the back of multiple reports into aged care under successive governments, we established the royal commission into aged care. The interim report that Labor is so keen to focus on criticises successive governments of all persuasions over many years. At least our government is taking action. I didn't see Labor set up a serious incident response scheme and I haven't seen Labor increase home care packages. In fact, until the devastating COVID crisis, Labor had been silent on the issue altogether.

It is a fact that now our immediate focus must be on assisting those in aged-care facilities that have been struck with COVID. This is our priority in the immediate stage. We have made an unlimited surge workforce available to affected facilities. Commonwealth-funded surge staff have been deployed to all infected Victorian facilities, and ADF personnel are assisting our response. It is a fact that we have community transmission. You're highly likely to see COVID in aged care. We saw that at Newmarch House, we saw it in Tasmania and now we see that, where you have widespread community transmission that has been caused by poor quarantine management, you tragically have large numbers in the facilities in Victoria—largely Melbourne and surrounds. In regional areas and in states where community transmission is low, outbreaks in facilities are being contained and managed if they are there at all. In states where we have no community transmissions, there are no outbreaks at all. So it is a fact that our government will continue to work with our aged-care industry to improve services and outcomes and to provide the best care for senior Australians, who deserve respect, dignity and compassion, not politics.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There have been 328 deaths from COVID in aged care, and the vast majority are from my home state of Victoria. Every one of those people was someone who was loved: a parent, a grandparent a friend, a neighbour. This is a tragedy. I help care for my elderly mother, who lives alone, so I can just imagine the worry of having loved ones so vulnerable in aged-care homes, and my heart just breaks for all those who have lost loved ones in this crisis. My mother struggles living alone, especially during the lockdown that we're currently in, but she's so glad at this time that she's not in an aged-care home and she worries so much about her friends who are. It's such an awful situation for our elderly, their families and our society to be in.

So many of the people who have died should not have died. They have died because of mismanagement. It is an absolute scandal that private aged-care providers are making megaprofits while failing to protect their residents. Privatisation has failed. It's created a casualised workforce, it's put workers at risk and it's put residents at risk, all for corporate profits. The Greens are calling for an urgent $3 billion injection into aged care for a human rights approach to aged care, with increased hours of care, increased staff, a minimum of one registered nurse rostered on 24/7 in each facility and additional home care packages so people can stay in their own homes for longer. The government must acknowledge that it has failed when it comes to aged care and take the action that is required now so that our precious older Australians can feel loved and supported and safe.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to this debate. This pandemic is a tragedy. It has visited tragedy upon hundreds of Australians. There have been 525 deaths in Australia from the COVID pandemic and over 300 deaths in aged care. This is an absolute tragedy, and the minister has been very eloquent in expressing the sympathy of all those on this side of the chamber for every one of those deaths, be it within an aged-care facility or within a hospital environment. It is an absolute tragedy, and we understand that. That is why the response to the pandemic, and, particularly, the response to the current issues in Victorian aged care are our absolute priority. In fact, the Prime Minister has said, 'This is my No. 1 focus.'

All services with an active case of COVID-19 are receiving support from the Australian government, including a single case manager, access to PPE, special residential aged-care testing facilities, and access to surge workforce and supplementation. We are extraordinarily grateful, as a government, to our surge workforce partners and other agencies who are supporting aged-care services impacted by this dreadful pandemic. These workers are providing essential support in these facilities under extraordinarily difficult and challenging circumstances. It is expected that all services accessing these support services will continue to provide the essential care that residents need. In particular, I wish to call out to the around 50 volunteer nurses and other healthcare workers from Western Australia who volunteered to fly to Victoria to act as part of that surge workforce in aged-care facilities and within other healthcare facilities. That is an extraordinary self-sacrifice and goes to the heart of what it means to be an Australian in such times of difficulty, where we support one another and help one another. We provide the assistance we need across borders to provide the services that those elderly Australians, particularly in care facilities within Victoria, need at the moment. In fact, over 450 Commonwealth funded surge staff have been deployed to Victorian aged-care services to date. ADF personnel—and I pay tribute to my colleague from Western Australia Minister Reynolds—are onsite in residential service facilities, and additional ADF clinical reserve staff are available for deployment.

The federal and Victorian governments have worked together to establish a dedicated Victorian Aged Care Response Centre in Melbourne to coordinate support for each aged-care provider experiencing a COVID outbreak in Victoria. A number of staff have been embedded in Victoria to provide assistance. This includes the Australian government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer , who is providing infection control expertise and emergency management support. The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre has now stood up family engagement capability, including support services with inbound calls, outbound calls and messages via Services Australia, OPAN services and Zoom meetings. The Commonwealth has deployed AUSMAT to Victoria, which will act under the direction of the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre to assist with the management of COVID-19. AUSMAT provides leadership in nursing, clinical care, infection prevention and control and the use of PPE for impacted aged-care facilities. On 20 July the Australian and Victorian governments, in collaboration with representatives from the aged-care sector, announced additional measures to ensure aged-care providers are equipped to minimise the spread of COVID-19 and continue to provide quality care.

Once again, my thoughts prayers go to those families who suffered a loss in this dreadful pandemic.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to this debate today because it is vitally important. Let me say first up that my heart, my thoughts and my prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones in the midst of this pandemic, particularly those who have lost grandparents and dear friends in what has been a tragedy in the aged-care system in Victoria.

The privatisation of aged care has been proven in this pandemic to be an absolute failure, and it has been a long time coming. Those who work in this sector have been warning for years that there were problems. For years those workers—often some of the lowest-paid workers in the health profession and in the service delivery sectors—had been warning that the privatisation and the desperation for profit over care was making aged-care homes right across the country more and more dangerous.

Why haven't we been able to get this system right? For too long, older Australians have not been given the care, support and health care that they deserve. And one of the key problems we have had in the midst of this pandemic is that those working in the sector, who are trying their best, themselves have not been able to access the appropriate supports, whether that's appropriate PPE, or paid leave if they too are sick. We need a clean-up in the aged-care system and we need to fix our leave system, so anybody who is sick doesn't have to go to work. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.