Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will first address the opposition amendment to the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2006. It is not a bad idea to advise those present, as they were not around previously, that prior to 1996 there were no inspections; there was no legislation that required inspections of the type applied today. Nor was there a publication of failings, as there is today. In the early period of the Howard government, I sat here and listened to the complaints of the opposition—I think it was the member for Jagajaga at the time—about what they had read on the internet. Having conducted the inspections and identified the faults, the Howard government thought it proper to publish the findings. All of a sudden it became an issue for the opposition. Those opposite never gave the matter a thought when they were in government. They did not do anything.

It is all right to stand up here in this place and move these types of amendments, contrary to the proceedings that occurred in the period when the opposition was in government, but the reality is that those opposite forget, and they insult, a lot of the very dedicated workers who run the nursing homes and aged persons homes. History shows that most of them do an excellent job. I might add that, as we as a government have had to respond to the nagging of the member for Jagajaga, in particular, the reality is that a lot of smaller homes are now overburdened with paperwork, as we require, and that is to the detriment of the service given to the elderly residents. There has to be a balance.

The government has already responded in what I think is a satisfactory fashion. We have an agency—virtually a statutory body—responsible for the oversight of nursing homes in a very independent way. The agency and the department have signed a variation of the deed of funding agreement requiring the agency to conduct at least one unannounced visit to each Australian government subsidised home annually—and to conduct more visits if required. Contrary to the remarks of the member for Lalor, the reality is that a process is in place. It is not legislated, it is not hidebound by that legislation, and it is not run on a stopwatch; it is there as a measure that can be varied as the need arises. In addition, the agency is required to maintain an average visiting schedule of 1.75 visits per home per year.

The agency commenced these visits on 1 July 2006. Residential aged-care facilities must not be given any prior notice of the support contact. Currently legislation requires the agency to give the approved provider written notice of the intention of a visit. That is for a residential aged-care facility. The agency process for unannounced visits is to give short notice of its intention to visit—often as little as five minutes prior to the visit being undertaken—and to present a written notice requesting entry to the home at the time of arrival at the home.

We have progressed from the policies of the previous government—of doing nothing—to a situation where an adequate visit, agreed with the government department, is conducted by the agency to ensure the wellbeing of the residents of these facilities. In my mind, this is quite an adequate arrangement, and it operates under a flexible system. Legislation can sometimes be an unnecessary burden. It can limit the department and the agency in how best to respond.

We have all heard of the black book. No doubt the agency is well and truly aware of where it is most likely to find breaches of the act. I do not think that they would be very often found in the many small facilities that exist in my electorate, which happen to be run, to a great degree, in terms of policy and practice, by a voluntary committee—hardworking local people who give of their time for that purpose. It is unnecessary to put those people under additional pressure.

I—and I am sure the government is of the same view—will reject these amendments as unnecessary and somewhat hypocritical considering the stance that was taken by the opposition when it had the opportunity to do these things anyway. We have to be extremely careful that we do not so burden the workers in aged-care facilities with paperwork that they have no time to address the real problems confronting people, particularly those who are bedridden and others. The member for Lalor talks about kerosene baths and sex abuse. The kerosene bath issue was posted on the website after our inspectors discovered that it was happening.

I would like to mention some aspects of this legislation. The legislation is primarily to harmonise the pension entitlements and the access to subsidised aged persons facilities so that the means tests applicable are consistent. I find nothing wrong with that. The government has decided that the arrangements will not commence until September 2007, and it will make them consistent with new superannuation laws. That seems eminently sensible.

In a more general way, I am anxious to talk about the opportunities for more dementia facilities in the rural centres that I represent. The other day, I had representations from residents of the town of Quairading, pointing out the situation of a family that is almost rusted to the town of Quairading. They are great citizens. The wife of that couple has gotten to the stage where her husband can no longer look after her. Her condition is such that it is beyond the aged-care facilities in that town. This example cannot be responded to in time, but it has brought to the attention of the community how badly their small community needs a dementia wing associated with the facilities they provide.

When we start to allocate these facilities, I think we have to be a little careful, and we have a standard guide that says that if you do not have 10 inmates you cannot make it a commercial success. A lot of communities would rather give of their own money for smaller facilities that would service their own community. There is, I guess, nothing worse than asking people who have lived a lifetime in a small community to pack up and go. I remember well that in my community of Carnarvon many years ago a couple went to Perth to get adequate facilities because one of them was in that situation. Shortly after their move, that person died and left the other person in a completely strange environment. That really sharpened me up as a local government person at the time to move our community towards having better facilities.

The government has provided quite a generous funding package in this regard. It is a special aspect of our current policy to give high priority to dementia sufferers and the facilities they require. I am hopeful, therefore, that the minister will, in due course, look very closely at small communities where the need for dementia services is quite high and see that some of those funds are directed to them, because it is very important.

Criticism of this government for neglecting the aged is not supported by the statistics. At 30 June 1995, there were 93.8 operational aged-care places for every 1,000 people aged over 70. By 30 June 2006, this increased to 105.8 operational aged-care places for every 1,000 people over the age of 70. This represents a 49 per cent increase in the number of operational aged-care places—from about 137,000 places in June 1995 to 204,869 in June 2006. That is not a government neglecting the aged. You can do a lot with statistics, but in every regard this area seems to have been well addressed by the government.

We have given assistance for 15,750 aged-care workers to access recognised education and training opportunities, such as certificate level III, certificate level IV and enrolled nurse qualifications—in other words, upskilling those people so they can better care for the people they serve and so they can improve their own employment prospects. We have a provision for 8,000 aged-care workers to access the Workplace English Language and Literacy program and provision for 5,250 enrolled nurses to access recognised and approved medication administration education and training programs.

Some of the administration is conducted by state governments. The last I heard was that a registered nurse could not give an injection in New South Wales. If that still applies, it is an amazing situation. I stand corrected if that situation has changed but, if the skills cannot be gained to apply that simple technology, one does not have to look too hard to see why we have some problems in operating these types of facilities. I have not tried it on a human, but a lot of my racehorses say that I am very effective in that particular area. I am sure it is not a skill that requires a medical practitioner.

We have established 1,600 new nursing places at universities and have created 1,000 scholarships to be offered to encourage more people to enter or re-enter aged-care nursing, especially in rural and regional areas—and I have already made some comments about that. There has been a significant effort on behalf of the government, and I welcome those efforts. For instance, over 21,000 new aged-care places will be allocated over the three years from 2006, including 6,387 for 2006-07 alone. With these new places, we will have allocated 95,200 places between 1996 and 2007-08. There are also many other issues of that nature—for example, the number of CACP and such packages available nationally increased from 4,431 in June 1996 to 32,941 in June 2005.

I gave an indication to the opposition that I would not be using all my time, and I should keep to that promise. The legislation is sensible, and I understand that there is no objection from the opposition in terms of the major intent of the legislation. I do, however, reject the opposition’s attempts to try to make political capital on something that they failed to do themselves and something which I think is very adequately maintained today—that is, the announced and unannounced inspections. To suggest that the process needs to be toughened up is to suggest that everybody who runs a nursing home is some sort of crook. They are not. They are very decent people. The ones who do fail in their responsibilities would become well known to the department and the agency over time—and I bet they are the ones who get the most inspections.

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