Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, ma'am. I am always courteous to the chair and so happy to give my colleague the member for Melbourne a bit of a clear run. Who knows? There might be a modest number of opportunities in the months ahead, but I thank him for his contribution. Wintringham are of particular interest to me as well. Not far from my community they operate a very interesting integrated facility which deals with a number of special needs clients in an appropriate environment that provides some dignity and respect and often deals with members of our community that slip through some of the structures that are put in place. It is a good model and an interesting model.

This is an interesting debate too. I was just enjoying a conversation with the minister and talking about where we are with this. I cannot help but feel that the Aged Care (Living Longer Living Better) Bill 2013 and related bills are a statement of intention where so much of the meat is not available. That is where the concern has been raised with me, not just once but repeatedly, by aged-care providers in my community.

For those who do not know the magnificent Mornington Peninsula, it is a mecca for all things virtuous. That includes its appeal as an aged-care destination. We seem to have a number of providers that appeal to particular sections of the community, the Vasey RSL facility being one where the veterans community travel from wide and far to be cared for in a wonderful facility in my electorate just south of Frankston. But we see that we have quite a significant aged-care provision task, not just for our own community but for people attracted to it from afar. At the same time, we have seen a number of providers exit the industry. It is just too hard for too many. We have seen local councils deciding that they would exit the sector now rather than be faced with more regulatory imposts, more capital burdens with increasing standards of facilities and a greater degree of regulation making an already difficult task incredibly challenging. We have seen not-for-profit organisations who quickly add that they are not only not for profit but not for loss either. They would like to be not for loss, but they have not been able to achieve that objective. And there are a number also facing substantial capital outlays in the years ahead deciding that this is not the business that they wanted to be in, even though many have had generations-long involvement.

From my own experience on the board of an aged-care facility, where we actually ran a private hospital to fund its operations—they were in the old CAM and SAM funding days—that was character building. I stayed quite closely involved with that organisation and hear of their challenges. Some of the ideas embedded in this package of bills sound fairly innocuous on the surface but leave them with complete uncertainty about where they will be when these changes are implemented: some of those proposals around having a pricing regulator; some of the ideas that you need to satisfy a new agency about your capacity to charge extra service fees; the arrangement about resident contributions versus more of a daily rental model and where that will leave them in terms of their conversation with the banks about accessing finance for facility upgrades; even something that is for some passe but for them very real, the impact of the carbon tax; and whether what is left after all their operating expenses, assuming that everything has gone just swimmingly, leaves a very thin margin with which they could then go to the bank and say, 'This is our capacity to service a loan.' These are the real-life challenges facing the aged-care sector.

These are some of the concerns that caused the government to have to engage the Productivity Commission in examining what the future looks like for the aged-care facility, where the Caring for older Australians report was provided. The government took many, many months to consider its response to that report and then waited 11 more months to actually bring these bills before the parliament.

In that hiatus, aged-care providers have just been left wondering what is going on. They know the ageing population is a major social issue for our country. The aged-care providers know that about nine per cent of our population are aged over 70 and that that will increase to a 13 per cent share of our population by 2021. They know that more than half of aged-care providers are currently operating in the red, and many of them do not see any black ink emerging from this package of bills.

There is also concern about the capacity not only of the sector but also of the staff to support the sector in meeting the expected demand into the future. This leaves many aged-care providers wondering just what the future looks likes. They have this package of measures, but that does not really answer some of the compelling concerns that they have. Why has it taken so long? Why the headline argument of $3.7 billion? It looked fantastic in the media, $3.7 billion. People thought it looked great—and the government got all the accolades for that headline that they hoped for—only to realise that only a small fraction of that amount was coming from the government and that aged-care providers were going to have to explain to their residents that $3.2 billion was actually coming out of their pockets. Many in the aged-care sector thought that their relationship with those they care for was moving away from being about the care and wellbeing of their residents to one of cost collection and debt recovery to make sure that money was coming out of those residents. These are the concerns. This is the real-life set of challenges that many in the aged-care sector face.

The workforce issue is quite compelling. You hear people talking about the number of workers needed to provide care into the future. I heard General Cosgrove talking about that and highlighting those concerns. There is a union recruitment strategy where there is some assistance, through a supplement, for those costs of providing the labour force, but you have to be hooked into United Voice. What a cunning plan for a union recruitment strategy. They are saying, 'Yes, you've got some wage and salary pressures, and workforce costs that are adding to other costs, such as the carbon tax,' and, in this case, even propositions about the government withdrawing from the marketplace in terms of the insurance that is provided in bonds and the like—all of these things adding to the costs—and then there is a tantalising offer of a supplement, but you need to have a United Voice enterprise-bargaining agreement.

As was reported in some of the submissions to the Senate committee inquiry, for each dollar you might get out of that, you are actually fitting yourself up for $3 more in costs, and those costs keep escalating into the future. Many in the aged-care sector are saying, 'This is kind of not the help we're looking for, where you take an existing problem, amp it up and turbocharge it, give us a fraction of the money needed to cover the cost impost, but lock us into even further financial stress for the future.' We have seen those concerns highlighted, yet the government seems not to want to address those.

That is why I think the amendment moved by the shadow minister, my friend Mr Dutton, is so important. There is so much that is unknown about the operationalisation of these bills. We have seen the words, we have heard talk of a new assessment instrument and we have seen providers wondering just how that is going to work, given that it has been framed in the context of there being such a huge amount of rorting going on—that there is such enormous mischief out there that we need a new instrument. That does not build confidence, even in the area of creating a new regulator to put a cap on bonds. The Prime Minister said, 'People have paid $2 million for their bond,' but we think there is one person, one person in the country, that has paid a bond at that level, in a spectacular condominium type environment—hardly typical. But this is where you see the government over-egging the exception to create some kind of justification for intervening in a whole range of ways that seem completely over the top and that, in the eyes of many in the aged-care community, are just further regulation of a sector that is already incredibly burdened by regulation.

So we have these bills but we do not have many answers. We have a Senate committee inquiry that has not concluded its work. We have a government that sat on this process in terms of both its response to the Productivity Commission and the astronomical period of time before this coathanger set of legislation was introduced. All the meat is in the regulations, which really go to how they will be operationalised. We do not have those, but we are expected to pass these bills. This is one of the problems that the parliament has faced under this divided and dysfunctional government. It is all done, not at the 11th hour but more like at 10 to 12—and it is now so time critical. A hiatus created by government inactivity has been responded to by this indecent haste to pass legislation on which many fundamental and substantial questions remain unanswered.

So we present this amendment, through the shadow minister, about the importance of proper consideration of these bills and how really the Senate standing committee should be given an opportunity to report. That would seem good process, because there are good people with a very heartfelt and selfless commitment to the care of the frail and aged in our community who have put their hearts and minds into making submissions. The least the parliament can do is respect that effort. The least the parliament should be required to do is embrace that input. Why would you have a consultation process and invite submissions through a parliamentary process yet in this chamber expect us to deliberate on these bills without the benefit of the conclusions that the Senate committee might arrive at? So I commend that amendment because it is a sensible amendment. It goes to sure-footed and sensible policy. It goes to legislative action that is informed by evidence, not responding to assertions that have been found to be very much wanting—and I draw your attention back to this $2 million bond 'problem', which actually represents a rare exception and is hardly the rule and hardly a precedent on which policy should be formulated.

In the area of the instruments themselves and allegations of people gaming the current funding instrument, I know, again from my feedback from the aged-care providers in my community, that they await with horror the audit team coming by. Here we have aged-care professionals working day in, day out, night and day on care plans and care requirements, just waiting for the Star Chamber audit team to come by, to make a decision just like that and to be—in some cases conveyed to me—quite unresponsive to the material that is put before them. In other cases, there is the assertion that gaming is going on to the cash-flow advantage of the aged-care providers, and then, after much trauma and anxiety, the audit team leaves perfectly happy with the arrangements. I just wonder what is going on there.

We know, and I know from my time as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, that often, when people need residential aged care, the simple fact that they are getting it sees an improvement in their wellness. It is the simple fact that they are surrounded by people who care for them. There is the emotional and intellectual nourishment of what I would call silly talk, just trying to work out what is going on in the world, solving the world's problems over a cup of tea, wondering why the Tigers did not fire on all cylinders on Saturday night. These are the big questions that many talk about in aged-care facilities, but that emotional, social and intellectual interaction can improve wellness. The care plans that are put in place not only maintain a person's wellness; they can add to it. Yet then questions like, 'Have you overspecified the care needs?' are raised because the person is more well than those care needs would suggest. Yet it is that very care that has brought about that improvement in people's wellness. These are some of the concerns that aged-care providers grapple with under the current arrangements, where so much of their time is paid to filling out paperwork, reports and regulatory burdens, yet, when these audit processes are activated, all of that red tape seems not to amount to much. It does not seem to be given the great weight that the operational requirements place on them.

This is why I think that this resolution is important and the amendment should be supported by the House. This is why I think the coalition's view that there is a need for a four-year aged-care rolling funding provider agreement would be a sensible and mutually respectful way of going about aged-care reform in this country. This is why then you would not have the great surprises that have dogged this industry for so long. This is why you would then see people re-entering to be providers in that field and see the professionals that work hard in it respected and valued for their expertise. This is why they would not have to fear yet another government agency coming and getting involved at a time when the sector is already fatigued by the so-called reform and reviews that currently exist and could focus their energy on the care of their residents. I hope the aged-care sector can survive the almost two years of suspended animation while the Aged Care Funding Instrument debate has evolved. We still need to know more about how sensory loss and other requirements are cared for. There is so much work to be done in here. It should be well informed. That is why I think that this House should consider the Senate's deliberations before concluding a view. (Time expired)

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