Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak about the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022. Firstly, I would like to set the scene for senators. In January 2020, our lives changed. Australians were about to face the first global pandemic in a century. Just as our country had endured the worst bushfires since Black Saturday, uncertainty swept the nation. It will be no surprise to Australians that the then-prime minister was nowhere to be seen, because, when Australians needed him most, he buried his head in the sand. By the time COVID reached Australian shores, cities and states around the country were facing the prospect of long, hard and lonely lockdowns. States and territories closed their borders. Many families began what would be years of separation. Australians were dying, aged-care homes were facing outbreak after outbreak and residents were left at risk, with families preparing for the worst.

It wasn't until February of 2021 that Australians began being vaccinated for COVID, months after vaccines had started to go into the arms of people in other developed nations. And then, to no surprise to any Australian, the government did not order enough vaccines. When vaccines did finally arrive, our most vulnerable were forgotten. Getting vaccines into arms was what was the former government called the key priority of 2021, and they failed early.

Two months on from when doses finally started going into the arms of aged-care residents and workers, only 10 per cent of the private aged-care workforce had received a vaccine. Aged-care residents were isolated for longer, workers left with the fear of accidentally introducing the virus into facilities and families left separated from their loved ones for much longer than necessary.

It breaks my heart to hear the number of lives lost to the virus in aged-care homes. Well over 3,000 families have lost members, and the former government simply treated them as statistics. The former government neglected aged-care residents, workers and our entire community for the best part of a decade while they were in government, leading to the royal commission into aged care. Older Australians worked hard all whole lives, contributing to our communities and our nation. All Australians deserve dignity in their frailer years.

That is why I rise today to commend the aged-care bill before us. A Labor government has done exactly what we said we would do. This bill implements many of our government's urgent election commitments that put security, dignity and humanity back into aged care through urgent funding and safety reforms. Aged-care workers are dedicated, caring individuals working in challenging environments across the country. Aged-care workers could take home a larger pay cheque by stacking shelves at Woolies than they currently get for caring for vulnerable Australians. This government is a government that will advocate for all workers to be valued and for their pay to reflect just that. That is why this government acted swiftly to write to the Fair Work Commission for permission to lodge a submission to support a pay rise for aged-care workers. This submission is well underway and we will be delivered to the Fair Work Commission by 8 August.

It will shock Australians to know that 24 per cent of aged-care facilities do not have a nurse on site for 24 hours a day, leaving some of our community's most vulnerable without the care many residents, families and the community expect them to receive. The bills introduced to parliament will legislate that providers of residential care of specified kinds of flexible care must have a registered nurse on site and on duty at each facility for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In doing so, older Australians will have access to the care they need when they need it. This will save thousands of unnecessary trips to hospital emergency departments and ensure that older Australians living in residential aged care have access to the nursing care they deserve.

Finally, is putting a dedicated facility based registered nurse in the room—not over the phone or with the responsibility of looking after three or four facilities. Through extending the availability of registered nurses in aged-care facilities, the government is committed to ensuring quality care. This bill would legislate a new code of conduct for the aged-care workforce that will set high standards of behaviour to ensure that care is delivered in a safe, competent and respectful way. The bill legislates for the creation of a comprehensive worker registration scheme; in the meantime, criminal history checks will remain for workers entering the aged-care sector.

This bill replaces the outdated Aged Care Funding Instrument with a new model for calculating aged-care subsidies. The new body will be titled the Australian National Aged Care Classification care funding model, which has been developed in consultation with the aged-care sector and consumer groups. Funding under the new Australian National Aged Care Classification model will commence on 1 October 2022.

The bill makes a series of much-needed structural changes that will improve the health, wellbeing and safety of older Australians. The bill will also assist older Australians and their families to have a better understanding of care requirements, and the operation of the providers. On top of this, the Albanese government is taking swift action to enhance the protection of older Australians living in aged care. The government's aged-care response is working to enhance the safety of workers and visitors in homes, and introducing infection control training.

The government is committed to integrity and transparency in the aged-care sector, introducing measures to hold providers to account about what they are spending money on and other information about provider operations. Through this bill, a star-rating system will be published on all residential aged-care services by the end of 2022. Publicly available information ensures families and future residents are able to make informed decisions about the facility they are moving into. The information will provide an honest contrast to the flashy fliers and advertisements. Further, the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority will be renamed to reflect a change of scope to include provisions of advice on health care, aged care, pricing and costing. These important measures respond to public concerns—concerns that embody the sentiment of residents and workers in aged care.

This government is set to deliver 17 recommendations from the royal commission through the first two pieces of aged-care legislation. The former government could only manage nine. This government has acted swiftly and will legislate real changes that will improve the lives of residents in aged care and the incredibly important and dedicated people who work with them. Unlike the former government, Labor is getting on with the job. This bill brings back care into the heart of aged care, and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You'd be hard-pressed to find a single Australian who doesn't have a loved one in aged care, approaching aged care or in some form of at-home support care. The broad range of services for older Australians is necessary and vital in a compassionate society. Unfortunately, the message that we've heard on this side of the chamber and the message the royal commission heard is that you'd be hard-pressed to find a single Australian who thinks that our aged-care system is working. It just isn't, and the stories that we hear over and over again throughout our communities reinforce that.

In 2013, when the coalition came to government, they unpicked a wide range of reforms that had been put in place by the previous Labor government. They'd been legislated, they'd been planned, they'd been consulted, and those reforms would have gone a long way to ensuring that we did not find ourselves in the situation that we do find ourselves in today. It is a system that has been on the precipice of disaster for the last decade, a system that was ignored by the previous government, underfunded and allowed to languish. When you allow the aged-care system to languish, you allow Australians to languish. People who've worked their whole lives to support this country are being left abandoned and are not being cared for in the manner that they deserve.

In the last nine years, we've seen 23 reports from inquiries and studies all the way to the royal commission. That's 23 reports. Each and every one of them was completely and utterly ignored. I don't need to explain to you all how shocking the findings of these reports are because many of you have read them. Far too many Australians, as they've read them, have felt sick to their stomach at the situation that we are placing our older Australians in.

Last week, I spoke to this chamber of how Australian communities, industry and workers are sick and tired of the uncertainty and the divisive politics that have surrounded climate change in this country for over a decade. I spoke of how workers and industry and communities are needing certainty, are needing to understand what that plan going forward is, are needing to understand the issues that we face and how we intend to address them. We need a plan that is backed up by consultation, by input from industry and from communities. Best practice policy is what we should be aiming for. Last week when I spoke about climate change, I may well have been speaking about aged care. We have exactly the same circumstance. It's an issue that has been long neglected and ignored, and just as the Australian people sent a clear message to us on the need for climate action, they have sent that same message of need for strong action on aged care now. We need an aged-care system that cares, we need a system that we can have confidence in and we need a system that will deliver the support our loved ones need.

Prior to the election, I had the opportunity to travel around regional South Australia, talking to workers, talking to aged-care providers and talking to families. The stories were consistent and they were alarming. No-one felt that they had their loved one in a situation that was all that it should be. Some were in better situations than others, but in the main people were really upset, really concerned and felt very powerless in that circumstance. I spoke to families who had loved ones who needed help eating food, for whatever reason. They needed to be coaxed; they needed to be supported through every meal, and the hours in those aged-care facilities were insufficient for staff to undertake that work, yet the families were not given permission to be there at every meal. For many of them it's then a decision about whether they maintain their own employment circumstances and how they share around that workload. All the while, those frail, older people are in a care facility where, without one-on-one support, they are not getting sufficient nutrition. So I can tell you, whether it's in Whyalla, Port Augusta, Port Pirie or Mount Gambier, or anywhere else in regional South Australia—or in the rest of the country, for that matter—the message is exactly the same. The litany of issues, from food and personal care to the amount of time that anyone could spend engaging in a meaningful way with their loved one, was just the same. Everyone had the same stories. This is a huge and unconscionable systemic failure.

People are worried that, when they need aged care, they'll have to move away from the communities they have lived in their whole lives. We've seen the closure of facilities in many places, which has affected the ability of families to visit with their loved one and the ability of those families to afford the petrol to get to the aged-care facility. It's different in the regional areas. It's not the same as in the city. It's not just an extra 10 minutes. It's not just an extra couple of kilometres. We're talking about people having to travel hundreds of kilometres to see their loved ones, while also maintaining their own jobs, bringing up their own families and still trying to maintain that strong bond with their loved ones.

The other critical issue here is that of workers. I spoke to many, many workers who feel exactly the same way as the families of those older people in residential aged care. They care so much and they try so hard to undertake their jobs, yet they do not have the time. The staffing is insufficient. The structures are inefficient. The way things pan out on a daily basis is that they are left running from one resident to the next, often with many, many bells lit up on their panel—knowing they have to go and see someone because they need assistance but just not having the ability to get there, given the enormous number of people who are requiring support. They're exhausted. They simply can't go on. I heard story after story from aged-care workers saying that, if they went and worked in a retail environment or in a cafe environment, they would earn more money and they would be less stressed. The additional shifts they're being asked to do, the hours that they're undertaking and the level of stress that they're having to deal with are causing what can only be described as a mental health crisis across our aged-care workforce.

The industry are worried that they won't be able to sustain the care they want to provide, having been stuck in a nine-year revolving door of inquiry and report and inquiry and report and no action. Earlier this year, the ABC reported that a resident in an aged-care facility in Port Augusta had developed very bad bedsores, and the sore on his back became so bad that you could actually see his spine. That's the kind of situation that we are seeing in some of our aged-care facilities, and it's one that we should all be ashamed of.

I heard stories of workers spread so thinly that they would find co-workers in tears and they would find co-workers trembling with anxiety about not being able to care for the people that they genuinely want to work with and genuinely want to support.

This kind of anguish for the families and for the workers cannot go on. The neglect must end—and the Albanese Labor government intends to do just that. We are not waiting. The bills that have been provided are going to take those first steps, and there's more to come.

Key to today's legislation is the principle of transparency. Part of the message I heard consistently was that people didn't understand how the aged-care system was being funded and what the aged-care providers were spending on food and on care—and various other aspects, be it administration, profits or the like. They did not know what those taxpayer funded subsidies were actually going towards; they did not know how the subsidies were calculated. And they did not know how to pursue their concerns. This bill begins to address some of those very specific concerns—namely, it establishes the Australian National Aged Care Classification model, which will be the structure for calculating the aged-care subsidy. This was endorsed by the royal commission and will ensure transparency and clarity about what subsidies are provided and what they are spent on.

The bill facilitates the publication of star ratings, so the community can start to understand exactly how those facilities are operating. It introduces a code of conduct for the aged-care sector—again, transparently sending the message to the community about what they can expect and what they can deserve from our aged-care sector. The provisions in the bill facilitate increased information sharing and oversight of refundable deposits and bonds and strengthen the governance of approved providers.

Crucially, this bill extends a serious incident response scheme to home care and flexible care, whereas it previously only operated in residential. That will move the sector to start covering off on all the in-home care that is provided, and that serious incident response scheme will help address issues as they are coming to light and to get onto it immediately, to make changes and address those situations.

We know that aged care needs to be tailored to people's specific needs and we know that that's a challenging situation. We know that the more independence that people have in aged care the better they fare, and the better the quality of life that they enjoy. Still being able to make the decisions that you can, even though you are unable to make other decisions or you are unable to continue with certain aspects of your life, to retain that control, is desperately important for the wellbeing of our older Australians. But the flexibility isn't a barrier to accountability. Those two things have to go hand in hand. Approximately one in 20 older Australians will experience some form of abuse or neglect but it's only one in six cases, it's estimated, that are reported. So there is a huge disparity there between what is happening and what is being talked about and what is being reported up the line.

At the end of last year, just over 16,000 South Australians were receiving home-care packages. Unfortunately, at the moment, the structures and mechanism for reporting abuse and neglect in those in-home facilities is vastly lacking and does not give the opportunity to improve those circumstances, improve those services and make a difference to those older people. So the bill introducing that legislation is necessary to extend that report and to ensure that we fill that gap.

The fundamental issue we face here is how we treat our older people and how we provide their families with the confidence, the knowledge and the understanding to be able to work with the system, to be able to look at where those issues are and pursue some solution, some resolution, to the problems they're facing. It's about the transparency that we choose to bring in here and the additional information for people, to understand how the aged care they're selecting for their loved one is performing, how they are matching up to the standards that we set as a country for the care of our older people and, then, having that detail about the percentage of the money they receive—the government money they receive, public funding—what that is being spent on.

Is there an overspend in the administration, noting that there does need to be administration but it needs to be balanced? How much of that money is going into profits for our profit based providers, and is that appropriate? How much money is being spent on the food that is being provided? How much money is being spent on the care, the time that individual care workers have to spend with residents, to see how their day's going, to make sure they have the care they need, that they're not lying waiting to go to the bathroom, that they're not having accidents because they need the support and assistance. These kinds of things are critical to how we run our aged-care system.

I commend these bills, particularly the accountability that we wish to bring into this system, the accountability and transparency.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022. It is an extremely important piece of legislation, as we've heard so many times today and last week. It is absolutely necessary, following the damning report of the royal commission into aged care. The title of the interim report summed up the experience of many in the aged-care sector, whether they be the staff who provide the care that is so important to our elderly Australians and their families or the residents and patients themselves.

Let's think about neglect. In fact, the opening title of the first paragraph reads, 'A shocking tale of neglect.' One of the opening paragraphs reads:

Australia prides itself on being a clever, innovative and caring country. Why, then, has the Royal Commission found these qualities so signally lacking in our aged care system? We have uncovered an aged care system that is characterised by an absence of innovation and by rigid conformity. The system lacks transparency in communication, reporting and accountability. It is not built around the people it is supposed to help and support, but around funding mechanisms, processes and procedures. This, too, must change.

It goes on to read:

Our public hearings, roundtable discussions with experts, and community forums have revealed behaviour by aged care service providers that, when brought to public attention, has attracted criticism and, in some cases, condemnation. Many of the cases of deficiencies or outright failings in aged care were known to both the providers concerned and the regulators before coming to public attention. Why has so little been done to address these deficiencies? We are left to conclude that a sector-wide focus on the need to increase funding, a culture of apathy about care essentials, and a lack of curiosity about the potential of aged care to provide restorative and loving care—all of which is underpinned by an ageist mindset—has enabled the aged care system to hide from the spotlight. This must also change.

It also reads:

Left isolated and powerless in this hidden-from-view system are older people and their families. 'This is not a life.' 'This is not my home.' 'Don't let this happen to anyone else.' 'Left in her own faeces, and still no one came.' 'Mum doesn't feel safe.'

This cruel and harmful system must be changed. We owe it to our parents, our grandparents, our partners, our friends. We owe it to strangers. We owe it to future generations. Older people deserve so much more.

We have found that the aged care system fails to meet the needs of our older, often very vulnerable, citizens. It does not deliver uniformly safe and quality care for older people. It is unkind and uncaring towards them. In too many instances, it simply neglects them.

Quite frankly, it is a national disgrace that the system has just carried on under these conditions. What makes it worse is that those who had the power to do something about it did nothing. I'm happy to say that the Albanese government is not going to cop that. The evidence taken and recommendations made by the royal commission are far too important to ignore. We owe it to older Australians to put it into practice by introducing this bill so that they have the assurance that they will get the very best care when they go into aged care and that that assurance also extends to their families.

This bill makes a series of important changes that will improve the health, safety and wellbeing of older Australians. It will also assist older Australians and their families in understanding the quality of care and operations of providers. This bill contains nine measures to implement urgent reforms to the aged-care system and responds to 17 recommendations of the final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was established on 8 October 2018 by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia. Experts saw it as a crucial opportunity to address a failing system. The royal commission made no fewer than 148 recommendations to address structural issues in funding and governance, formulated after evidence from 641 experts, residents and families, over almost 100 hearing days since the former Prime Minister ordered the inquiry in October 2018. Those are just a few facts about the royal commission. For someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Senate inquiries, this is mind blowing. There have been 10,574 submissions received to date, and 6,800 telephone calls were made to the information line. Like many Australians, I was horrified to hear stories and cases about the conditions aged-care residents were being forced to live in on a daily basis across our country.

As part of their lobbying for change, I did meet last year with a delegation of aged-care workers and United Workers Union members who came to parliament to appeal to the former government to act and make change. These are good, decent, hardworking people who actually love their jobs and the care they provide to older Australians. It was terribly sad to see how heartbroken they were because of the conditions they were being forced to endure at work and the conditions their residents were also experiencing as a result.

The UWU submission to the royal commission included some direct experiences of aged-care staff, which I want to put on the record:

I get disheartened and frustrated— there's not enough staff or money for what we do. Management do not listen to us, notice what we do, or take notice of our complaints. This has to change.

Another quote:

In the last three years my income has reduced each year and I expect this year to make four. I have no guarantee at all regarding how many hours I work. I cannot get out of this job soon enough and when I do would never consider working in this field again and would never recommend for anyone else to do so. It's a complete dead end.

How sad is that? Here's another quote:

I do the job because of how much I care not for the money because it's terrible pay for the amount of physical, mental and emotional strain on us…I'm sure more people would do it if the pay was better …

And another:

Paper work, documentation are necessary but our residents come first, carers are working back in their own time to finish workload …

Another one:

I work extra hours in my own time …

And another one again:

People should not be allowed to do a 6 month course and then be qualified to work in aged care. They have no idea what they are doing and it's not fair on the elderly that end up getting these care staff.

Another quote:

It took me 9 months to get qualified through TAFE. Stop doing six week courses to qualify to be a carer.

Poor quality of food, abuse, neglect, lack of quality care, poor standards and conditions for staff and residents, understaffing, lack of training, low levels of pay—the list goes on and on and on. You've got to ask yourself: how did it get to this? Conditions in the aged-care sector had gotten so bad that earlier this year aged-care peak bodies and unions made a request to the former government for the Australian Defence Force to be brought in to assist in residential aged-care facilities to alleviate stress on the embattled aged-care workforce. As we learnt, COVID-19 hit the aged-care workforce hard, with some facilities losing anywhere between five and 50 per cent of their staff due to COVID-19 results or staff needing to quarantine as close contacts of a case. On top of this, peak bodies stated that staff burnout among the workforce was resulting in widespread resignations.

Industry bodies—including the Australian Aged Care Collaboration, consisting of six aged-care peak bodies; the United Workers Union; and the Health Services Union—joined together to call for extra assistance from the former government. Those same organisations pleaded with the former government to fix unresolved systematic funding and workforce issues, which were outlined in the final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. And what did they get? Nothing. So, on top of the complete neglect that the former government was guilty of, there was a complete disrespect for the peak bodies who represent the aged-care sector, which is in so much need of attention. And despite the former Prime Minister himself conceding that the aged-care sector was indeed in crisis—not my words but his—his government refused to act on aged-care reform.

Prior to the election Prime Minister Albanese told Australia that fixing aged care was a Labor priority, and the introduction of these reforms demonstrates this government's commitment to reform. The royal commission response bill provides the legislative framework for the new AN-ACC funding model for residential aged-care homes, which will replace the outdated Aged Care Funding Instrument in October 2022. This framework will offer more equitable funding, better matched to provider costs in delivering the care residents need. It also extends the functions of the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, which will lead to better price setting for aged-care homes.

Other measures enshrine transparency and accountability of approved providers, and improved quality of care and safety for older Australians receiving aged-care services. This includes the star-rating system, which will see the Department of Health and Aged Care publish a comparison rating for all residential aged-care services by the end of this year; an extension of the Serious Incident Response Scheme to all in-home providers from 1 December 2022; many increased protections from preventable incidences, abuse and neglect of older Australians; and a new code of conduct for approved providers, their workforce and governing persons—and what a good thing that is. There will be better accountability, improved quality of care and a code of conduct for providers and their workforces, which will go a long way to address the experiences of aged-care staff that I did mention earlier.

I wish there had been a system of transparency and accountability in place when we were looking to settle finally on a place for my mother-in-law, Ilma—we do miss you, Ilma. She would have turned 90 last week. But I know the effort that my wife and her sisters put in to find a suitable home for Ilma. A lot of research was done and much consideration, I have to say. The family made the decision to settle Ilma at the Aegis residential care facility in Melville, not far from our home in WA. When the family looked at the room and checked out the facility the management told us that Ilma would have her own bathroom, no problem. I know that when the girls moved her in there they were packing her stuff into the bathroom and saw another door. They opened the door and it was the door to another room; it was a shared bathroom.

Now, that's fine. But the thing is that on the Aegis website, which was checked out again on Friday and had been updated on 6 July, these lying so-and-so's are still saying that you get your own bathroom. You do not: the age-care residents do not. They even lie about it, and to this day they're still getting away with it. I would encourage any Western Australian—I'm happy to meet with the board of Aegis and I'm happy to meet with whoever from Aegis; I wouldn't put a cat or a dog into an Aegis home while they lie like that. The sad part is the staff at Aegis too: really decent people, all agency people. They didn't know where they were going to work this week or where they would work next week. They were just shuffled and shunted around. Aegis: do you think that's a good model for old people, when older people desperately need recognition and desperately need some form of stability? They have to have that; it makes them feel more comfortable too. Not only that, it's the poor staff. The poor staff are being shunted around. They didn't know the intricacies of their residents; they didn't know that some people may be a little bit harder to do something for here or there. They didn't know because they weren't around long enough, and Aegis had great pride in taking people's money for that.

But, I'm happy to say, that Ilma ended up at RAAFA, in the Royal Australian Air Force aged-care facility in Perth. What a magnificent facility! It was chalk and cheese: everything about the place I would thoroughly recommend. The food that was served to the residents was the same food that was provided in the canteen for the workers, which was the same food provided at the little lunch bar when family came in to visit them. What a magnificent bunch of people. When Ilma did pass away, it was lovely to see that half a dozen of the staff came to her funeral. They treated her like family, as they treated all the residents at RAAFA as family—not like Aegis, one of the worst of the worst. I would thoroughly—thoroughly—enjoy a conversation with Aegis, but I know they wouldn't dare pick up the phone because I would even start using my truckie language when we got into it, seriously!

In saying that, I want to commend these bills to the Senate and I thank the Senate for its time.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will start my contribution today on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022 by pointing out this is the first bill Labor has introduced into the Senate. It really underlines the seriousness with which we take this issue that we would choose to open our entire legislative program for the 47th Parliament with this bill. Of course, it's hugely important. This bill goes to the heart of how Australia treats some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Aged-care recipients are people who have lived long lives, worked, volunteered, raised families and paid their taxes. They are our aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents. They've spent many years contributing to our country and community, and now, when they lack the ability to live independently and care for themselves, they justifiably expect to be cared for by society with dignity and with compassion. It's a simple and reasonable request. But, sadly, we as a nation have been failing our older Australians for a considerable time.

The aged-care sector is in crisis because of nine long years of failure and neglect by the previous government. Fixing the crisis is not just about looking after the millions of Australians relying on the aged-care system now; it's for all our sakes. Let's face it: most of us will grow old—hopefully!—and will rely on the aged-care system in some way. When we do, we would like the assurance that we are going to get better treatment than the suffering being experienced by many older Australians now.

The aged-care royal commission shone a light on this suffering, and many, many Australians were absolutely shocked by what it revealed. Among the worst findings of the aged-care royal commission were the following. In 2018-19 the number of alleged assaults in aged care was estimated to be between 32,000 and 44,000. In the same period there were estimated to be 2,520 alleged incidents of unlawful sexual contact—almost 50 a week. Studies revealed that as many as 68 per cent of people in residential aged care were either malnourished or at risk of malnutrition, and there was a clear overuse of physical restraints and dangerous and unnecessary chemical restraints in residential aged care. The royal commission concluded that at least one in three people accessing residential aged-care and home-care services experienced substandard care. They also found that many of the people in institutions in the aged-care sector want to deliver the best possible care to older people but are overwhelmed, underfunded or out of their depth.

I know those opposite hate being reminded of this fact but the royal commission's interim report was given a one-word title: Neglect. That one word sums up perfectly the shameful treatment of older Australians over the time those opposite were in government. The previous government failed to address the crisis because, like so many issues, they treated it as a political issue—not a human catastrophe but a public relations problem to be media managed. And the worst culprit in this respect was the former Prime Minister, Mr Morrison. We all know Mr Morrison earned himself the nickname 'Scotty from Marketing' because of his propensity to try and spin his way out of problems rather than show any real leadership.

A case in point is the release of the aged-care royal commission's final report on 1 March 2021. Mr Morrison held a press conference outside Kirribilli House to announce the release. What should have been an opportunity for a dialogue about the contents of the report, its damning findings and what the government was going to do to address it turned into a PR stunt. I'm sure Mr Morrison was hoping the media would simply go along with it, but kudos to the ABC's Anne Connolly for calling it out for what it was. Here's what Ms Connolly said when she confronted the then Prime Minister about his stunt: 'You've had this report since Friday. You've given us half an hour's notice to attend a press conference. You tabled the report while we were here. How can we ask questions that are relevant to the report without knowing what's in it?' I guess the follow-up implicit in Ms Connolly's line of questioning was, 'What's the point of the press conference?' It was clear that the point of the press conference was to deliver the type of spin that Mr Morrison constantly engaged in. He released the report at the beginning of the press conference because he wanted journalists to hear his interpretation of the report, without asking any uncomfortable questions about its damning findings. To Mr Morrison, the ongoing crisis in aged care—like the so-called barnacles of the Howard era—were just a political problem that he wished would go away.

Let's not forget that the aged care royal commission was called about six months before the 2019 federal election. Although it was an important exercise in shining a light on some of the most egregious failings in aged care, I think the timing was pretty cynical. It seemed that Mr Morrison, shortly after coming to the leadership, wanted to kick the can down the road to get through to the next election, rather than take any real action to address the aged-care crisis. Even with the royal commission in full swing, there was a need for urgent action and there were plenty of previous reports to outline what action was needed, as the royal commission itself noted in this stinging criticism:

Had the Australian Government acted upon previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided.

This is a sector that has never truly been valued by those opposite—an attitude that was typified by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when he suggested that an aged-care worker in Burnie in Tasmania was 'entitled to aspire to a better job'. On that side, we've had a procession of aged-care ministers who have allowed report after report after report into the sector to accumulate. Altogether, 23 reports have been gathering dust on the desk of one aged-care minister after another without any meaningful action from the previous government to address the crisis in aged care. The latest and, arguably, least efficient or effective minister—although he had strong competition for that title, I think—was Senator Colbeck. As minister, Senator Colbeck oversaw the disastrous handling of the government's response to COVID outbreaks in aged care in the early days of the pandemic. In the midst of this crisis, he chose to accept VIP hospitality at a cricket match in Hobart instead of turning up to answer questions at a public hearing of the Senate's COVID inquiry. I remember speaking to Senator Gallagher about this and being told that he had been offered dates and that the inquiry was happy to arrange dates that suited Senator Colbeck, but he still didn't want to turn up. When, after being embarrassed into it, he did finally front the inquiry, he could not answer a basic but important question: 'How many Australians have died of COVID in residential aged care?'

I won't pretend that the election of a Labor government means the crisis in aged care is magically over. Australians can, at least, be assured that they now have a government that is serious about tackling the crisis. Before the Senate today is a bill that helps restore quality, dignity and humanity to Australia's aged-care system. Extensive consultations have been held with unions as well as aged-care workers, providers and residents to ensure that their views and experiences are considered, and I would like to congratulate the minister for aged care for hitting the ground running and meeting with so many stakeholders in such a short period of time.

Several of the measures in this bill were recommended by the royal commission. Some measures in this bill were included in the former government's Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021, which lapsed when the election was called. Instead of schedule 2 of the lapsed bill, a new comprehensive worker registration scheme will be developed, with criminal history checks continuing to apply in the meantime. In regard to this measure, I appreciate that working in aged care is a difficult and demanding job. In fact, when I was a student nurse, I was doing my studies at an aged-care facility. It was actually a hospital for aged-care people, and 98 per cent of people in that hospital were in aged care. I was a childcare worker for 12 years and I've got to say that aged care was even harder than that, and it was a pretty damn hard job being an early childhood educator. So, having worked in aged care, I absolutely get what these workers are going through. I remember being spoken to once because I wanted to spend time talking to the patients, and there just wasn't time. You just got on and did what you had to do. There was no time for that. That was really sad, and it was one of the reasons I left.

There are occasions, however, where someone demonstrates that they are not a fit and proper person to be working in aged care, and we don't want them simply going and getting a job with another provider. If you look at some other professions with registration schemes—for example, doctoring, nursing and teaching—the same principle applies, because they have vulnerable people in their care.

The bill also includes several measures that will provide additional protections for older Australians. These include the expansion of the Serious Incident Response Scheme, to establish obligations on approved providers of home care and flexible care in a community setting to report and respond to incidents and to take action to prevent incidents from recurring. A new code of conduct will set higher standards of behaviour for aged-care workers, approved providers and governing persons of approved providers, to ensure they are delivering aged care in a way that is safe, competent and respectful. Improved information-sharing between care and support sector regulators will enable proactive monitoring of cross-sector risks and better protection of consumers and participants from harm. An interim solution for the provision of consent to the use of restrictive practices is to be established while state and territory consent arrangements are reconsidered.

The bill also includes a series of measures that provide greater transparency and accountability for providers. Star ratings will be published for all residential aged-care services on My Aged Care by the end of 2022. These ratings will enable older Australians, their families and carers to make informed decisions when seeking quality aged care.

From 1 December 2022, approved providers and their governing bodies will be required to meet new responsibilities that will improve governance. Approved providers will be required to notify the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission of changes to key personnel, and the current disqualified-individual arrangements will be replaced with a broader suitability test. Amendments will also be made to increase financial and prudential oversight in respect of refundable accommodation deposits and bonds. The functions of a renamed Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority will be expanded to include the provision of advice on health-care and aged-care pricing and costing.

This bill is just the beginning of the work of the Albanese Labor government. It's just the beginning of the work that we will be doing to restore decency and humanity to the aged-care sector and to ensure that older Australians are treated with respect, dignity and compassion. I'd love to be able to say that we can end the crisis now—that we can snap our fingers and fix the mess caused by nine years of neglect—but this is a large and complex multibillion-dollar sector, and you can't fix nine years of neglect in nine or 10 weeks. Having said that, we are dedicated to the task—which is more than I could say for our predecessors.

This bill addresses some of the most urgent reforms for the sector, but we have some big plans for aged care that we committed to in the lead-up to the recent federal election. The Albanese Labor government will ensure that every residential aged-care facility will have at least one qualified registered nurse, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We will raise the standard of aged care across the board and mandate that every resident receives at least 215 minutes of care per day. We will back a real pay rise for aged-care workers, and, if the Fair Work Commission delivers it, we will fund it. If we want higher standards of care then we need higher wages for our carers. And we will ensure better food for aged-care residents by mandating nutrition standards for aged-care homes. The contrast between our commitment to drastically improve standards in aged care and the neglect of the previous government could not be more stark. But we are determined to fix this mess and to ensure that older Australians receive the quality care they need and deserve.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be speaking on this legislation today and very pleased to be following my colleague from Tasmania, who has been an incredible advocate for aged-care workers and for the aged-care sector in her time representing the people from Tasmania. I rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill. But there's one word that rings in people's minds across the country when we think about our aged-care system, and that is 'neglect'. That is the hallmark of the former government's record on aged care—woeful neglect at the hands of a government that either did not care or was too incompetent to act. There have been 23 reports into aged care over the last decade. Let that sink in—23 reports that went ignored by the former government. Let us never forget that it was in this place that the former Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians turned his back on aged-care residents, dedicated carers and their families.

Today, a decade of inaction is finally about to end, as our government introduces this bill and starts to piece back together a broken system. The Albanese Labor government has fast-tracked this legislation because the time to act is long overdue. These 23 reports, all gathering dust under the watch of the former government, painted a horrifying picture. For over a decade, the sector has been crying out for support from the federal government—advocates, workers and residents have all been banging the drum for reform, with no response and no reprieve. The onset of the global pandemic forced an ambivalent government to confront their own legacy on caring for older Australians. The former government failed older Australians and the workers that care for them. They failed to secure enough vaccines and PPE to protect residents and staff from COVID. They refused to act on the recommendations of the royal commission that they were forced to call. Their minister was asleep at the wheel while the sector was in crisis, and nobody stepped in.

Not enough resources, not enough action, not enough accountability—the stories that came out of the royal commission were horrifying. Residents and their families told us people were locked in their rooms without food or water. Aged-care workers told us they were overworked, underpaid and put at risk. They literally cried tears of exhaustion and for being ignored. And how was this received by the previous government? They consistently denied that there was a problem, voting consistently in this place against motions to acknowledge an aged-care crisis, making media appearances arguing that the lived experience of aged-care residents and staff were overblown, repeating their talking points through the shortage of PPE, vaccines and RAT tests. Time and time again, they refused to acknowledge that the problem was in front of them. Even when they were forced to initiate a royal commission, the former government's implementation of its recommendations were worse than half-hearted. In the 17 months since the final report was handed down, the former government addressed only six per cent of those recommendations. Six per cent—what a slap in the face for those workers and residents.

For over a year, not even one-tenth of the recommendations have been addressed. With all the resources of a parliament and a government and a bureaucracy at their disposal, the former government only tinkered around the edges of a broken system. To top all this off, the Morrison Government tried to buy the votes of the aged-care workforce with a one-off payment just before the election. Instead of using their time in government to fix the real structural issues in the sector that they had been told about for years, they tried to paper over it with a quick sugar hit for front-line workers. Well, we know how that turned out for them. At the last election, aged-care workers, residents and our community sent the former government a clear message that meagre adjustments around the edges would not cut it. The Anthony Albanese Labor government was given a clear mandate at the election. It is time to fix up aged care and build a sector that respects older Australians and those that care for them.

Labor's Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill amends Australia's aged-care legislation to deliver a suite of long-overdue funding, quality and safety measures. These reforms are borne out of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which was called after countless disgraceful reports on the treatment of older Australians made it impossible not to act. The royal commission was intended to be a line in the sand, one that said aged-care residents and aged-care staff deserve to live and work in a sector that is centred around care and not around profit. Labor's bill sets the foundation for a better aged-care sector in Australia. These urgent measures respond to a range of recommendations from the final report of the royal commission. These are structural reforms and lay the foundation for a more compassionate and sustainable sector.

So, what will the bill do? It will deliver a more equitable funding model. It will protect residents through a code of conduct for staff and providers. It will recognise the skill of aged-care workers through a national registration scheme, and it will improve transparency through a provider star rating system and stronger governance. It will extend protections to older Australians receiving care in their homes. This is a vital first step towards getting the settings right to put the pieces back together of a broken system.

But Labor's work to fix this broken system doesn't stop here. Further reform to aged care is currently before the House. The Aged Care Amendment (Implementing Care Reform) Bill will deliver three important reforms. Under Labor's plan, every residential care provider will have a residential nurse on staff 24/7. We are putting the nurses back into the nursing homes. We're making sure funding gets to residents by capping management funding allocations, and we're improving transparency in the sector by making service providers' expenditure publicly available, delivering the transparency and accountability that aged-care workers and residents have been calling for for so long.

I'm really proud that the Labor government is prioritising these long-overdue reforms. We weren't quite on these issues in opposition. We worked hard to hold the government to account on behalf of aged-care residents and their staff. For months—years—we urged the former government to act, and now, at the very first opportunity in government, that is exactly what we are doing. We are doing what they refused to do. This bill should be a statement to all Australians that Labor are committed to doing what we say we will do. We've said all along that we'll stand up for workers and for vulnerable members of our society, and we're getting on with the job of doing that. The bill is the product of a new Labor government that listens, considers and acts. It is the product of a government that wants to bring people together and leave no-one behind, the product of a government that cares.

This bill starts the incredibly hard but important work of piecing back together a broken system. It is the product of thousands of residents, staff and families generously sharing their stories, their recommendations, on how to build a sector that all of us can be proud of. It is the product of aged-care workers coming to this place time and time again, sitting in the gallery, marching down the corridors of this place, pleading for help, pleading for assistance. It is the product of those aged-care workers time and time again marching on the streets, going out there and talking to people about the conditions in their industry.

Today, as I finish my contribution, I want to thank those aged-care workers for their contribution; for going that extra step for their residents, day in, day out; for being engaged on this issue; for coming here and telling us what needs to be done. This side of the House was listening. This side of the chamber was listening to those workers, and that is why the passage of this bill is the foundation for a safer, more respectful workplace for Australia's aged-care workforce. It is the foundation of a more safe, healthy and dignified life for older Australians, Australians who have done their time, who have contributed to this country and who now deserve a dignified retirement. I commend this bill to the Senate.

Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to contribute to the debate today, as this bill covers important, once-in-a-generation reform of Australia's aged-care system. As the Chair of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee during the 46th Parliament, I take a particular interest in a bill that affects senior Australians and their needs.

The opposition support this bill, the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022, as it is a revised version of the royal commission response bill that the coalition introduced in the last parliament. Essentially, it mirrors the legislation already discussed in this chamber. We also support the delivery of the second stage of critical aged-care reform that was started by the coalition in government in response to the royal commission's final report. What disappoints me about this bill is that the Albanese government could have saved senior Australians and the aged-care industry undue stress by passing these reforms when our bill was before the previous parliament. Interestingly, one of the major election promises of Labor during the federal election campaign was to support aged-care residents. I would argue that making them wait extra time for the introduction of such important reforms is not supportive at all. In fact, the government's treatment of older Australians since the election has been very disappointing. Free rapid antigen tests are no longer available for aged-care homes experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak, and the government has backflipped on its decision not to extend the critical COVID support provided by the Australian Defence Force. More support for aged-care providers was promised but nothing has eventuated as yet.

Like the coalition's 2021 aged-care bill, this bill will replace the outdated Aged Care Funding Instrument with the Australian National Aged Care Classification, AN-ACC, residential aged-care funding model from 1 October this year. However, by delaying the passage of this bill the government has now restricted the time available for aged-care providers to transition to this new AN-ACC funding model. This delay has done absolutely nothing to support or help the aged-care sector or any of the senior Australians in residential care.

I'm also disappointed to see that, in addition to delaying this time-critical legislation, the government has removed the worker screening regulations that were contained in the coalition's bill. These were important regulatory arrangements that were supported by the sector. The royal commission recommended stronger regulation of the personal care workforce to increase protection for senior Australians and reduce the risks posed by unacceptable workers. Our bill responded to recommendation 77 from the royal commission, which called for an authority that would conduct pre-employment screening for aged-care workers and those responsible for governance of approved suppliers. Our approach applied to employment across the care and support sectors, incorporating aged care, disability support and veterans care. This approach included using a national database of cleared and excluded people to support those making employment decisions. It is clear the government has bowed to the unions by removing this specific schedule on worker screening within the bill. The government must stand up to the unions and implement good policies to protect the rights of care sector workers by allowing the establishment of a database for all care workers that is consistent at a national level. One database across the care sector would have simplified processes for employers and made it easier for NDIS, aged and veteran carers to move between caring roles in these sectors. It also would have protected aged-care residents and given providers the peace of mind that comes from knowing that their employees are fit to care for older Australians. Instead, this bill, and the remaining protections it introduces for those in aged care, has been delayed for no good reason.

Under the coalition government the number of home-care packages and residential care packages rose every year, and funding for aged care rose too. The 2022-23 budget included $522 million in funding for aged-care reform, which built on the $18.3 billion committed in the 2021-22 budget and the 2021-22 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. That brought the total investment in aged care in response to the royal commission to over $19 billion. We on this side of the chamber remain committed to providing senior Australians with the support they need to stay in their own home for longer, as evidenced by our term in government. I mentioned that the number of home-care packages rose every year under the coalition; more specifically, these home-care packages had increased from 60,308 in 2012-13 under Labor to a projected 275,597 in 2024-25, an increase of 357 per cent. Additionally, in February this year the coalition government announced that eligible aged-care workers would be paid a bonus of up to $800. The aged-care workforce retention bonus benefited 265,000 workers in the sector and was the fourth workforce bonus.

The opposition will be keeping a close eye on upcoming aged-care reform introduced by the Albanese government, to ensure that appropriate regulatory provisions are introduced and that those who exhibit poor conduct in the aged-care sector are held to account. We listened to the experiences of those who gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and we took decisive action to implement the recommendations and introduce reforms that delivered vital support and improved quality of care within the sector.