Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Fisher's words remind me of something I've said before: if we ran Australia like a family instead of like a business then things like those the member for Fisher talks about would be much more possible, I think, for many Australians. If we run the place like a business and people are treated like units of production—they're worked harder and harder and faster and faster, and all that matters is money—then it becomes much more difficult for people to take time out to do the sorts of things that he's talking about. If we ran the place like a family, we'd still have to balance the budget, but we'd look after people. We'd look after grandma in aged care. We'd make sure our kids got the best education we could afford. So maybe, if we just changed the thinking of the country—stopped running it like a business and ran it like a family—then I think we'd all be better off for it.

No-one could have watched the Four Corners programs and been unaffected by them. It's the view of many in this House, certainly of those on this side, that the royal commission that the government announced before the program even went to air was to pre-empt the inevitable—that the government knew the revelations would be so nauseating that nothing short of a royal commission would satisfy the public. Of course, the reason Four Corners decided to report on the state of aged care in this country was the unprecedented flood of calls and emails that the ABC received when it put out the simple call to Australians: 'Tell us your story about aged care.' More than 4,000 Australians hit their phones and keypads, and, from those many stories—themselves a fraction of the number of people working in, cared for, or otherwise related to this sector—a tiny number were chosen to reflect what is going on.

So I have a plea that I hope those opposite will heed: do not wait for the royal commission to wind up before taking action to address the issues exposed in the Four Corners reports. The government must not wait for the royal commission to finish before getting to work to fix this crisis.

We have all known for some time that all was not well in aged care. There has been report after report, recommendation after recommendation. The Leader of the Opposition said in May that there was a crisis in the sector, and the minister lectured him for it, saying it was like committing elder abuse to claim that there was a crisis. And that was an appalling—and, frankly, out-of-character—overreach by the minister, and it was demonstrably false, as the government's calling of the royal commission has demonstrated. If there was no crisis, why is there a royal commission?

There have been many inquiries into the issues confronting aged care, and the findings are the same: not enough aged-care workers; too many unreasonable deadlines and expectations; not enough staff per client; and not enough pay, respect or support. The recommendations of these inquiries often aren't acted upon because they cost money, and so a new inquiry gets launched—perhaps in the hope that the new recommendations won't involve spending more money. Well, that would be a false hope.

We all in this place share responsibility for the parlous state that the sector is in today: not enough money invested, not enough staff trained, not enough oversight of standards and not enough care at the highest levels of government to ensure that people who are at their most vulnerable, in the twilight of their lives, are cared for with dignity, compassion and respect. I am ashamed, as a parliamentarian and an Australian, that elderly people in care facilities have been left for hours in their own faeces or left to cry for assistance but not heeded because of either a lack of staff or a lack of care. I am ashamed that people whose only crime is age have been fed slop barely fit for dogs because providers either do not have the money or do not care enough to cook them decent meals. Each and every one of us in this place needs to take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask the questions: 'What can I do to improve things? Where are my priorities? What do I regard to be a proper level of public investment in aged care? What will I do to progress a better outcome?'

I know the minister to be a decent man—a thoroughly decent man—and I know that the shadow minister has a cordial and respectful relationship with him. I know the minister would always prefer there to be bipartisan support on aged care, and normally I'd agree with him. The parliament and the operations of government generally work better when there's more cooperation and less conflict. But it is this opposition's job to hold this government, and this minister, to account, and under those opposite aged care has lurched from crisis to crisis. And it has lurched because of the deliberate actions of the government.

In the 2016 budget, the Prime Minister, who was then Treasurer, cut $1.2 billion from the Aged Care Funding Instrument. The problems in aged care were not unknown at the time, they just weren't in the headlines. The Prime Minister told this place in the last sitting that there have been no cuts to aged care, even though they are there in his own budget, in black and white and in unambiguous language. Perhaps he thinks if he repeats the lie long enough it will simply be believed, irrespective of the fact that the cut was announced in his own budget, was reported far and wide in headlines across the country and was talked about with alarm inside the aged-care industry.

We can't cut our way to better care. We need to be investing more, not less, in the care of our elderly. And if anyone in this place starts muttering about the impact on the budget or fiscal irresponsibility, they can mutter all they want. This is a matter of priorities, and I know that my priority as a parliamentarian is to ensure that elderly Australians live out the final years of their lives with dignity. We need more staff, better wages and better conditions for those who undertake the important work of caring for our elderly. And it's important that when we talk about staffing levels we talk about more than just nurses. Nurses are vital, but so too are personal care assistants, cooks, kitchen hands and cleaners. Much of the heavy lifting in aged care—and I talk literally here, as well as figuratively—is done by non-nursing staff. These are the people who help move immobile residents from place to place, who turn up in the middle of the night to shift people to avoid bed sores and who help with cleaning, toileting and other personal care. So, yes, more nurses are important. But if we are really serious about improving the level of care in aged-care facilities we will provide more staff across the board, including overnight, and in non-nursing roles as well.

I am pleased to offer my support for this bill, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill, and to the new agency that the government is intending to establish. I am disturbed, however, that the aged-care sector has been allowed to deteriorate to the point that such an agency is necessary. It is not like we weren't warned. The Health and Community Services Union, HACSU, and other health unions have been warning us for years that this crisis was headed our way. They see it every day on the front line with their members, who battle with unreasonable demands to meet deadlines, inadequate staffing and massive turnover—so many good people leave the sector, burned out by poor pay and grim working conditions.

Australia is a wealthy country. It is unacceptable to me that the government has failed to appropriately support this crucial sector, its employees and its clients. Across Australia, the aged-care sector is an enormous contributor to the national economy. It is a $20 billion sector, employing more than 224,000 Australians, across more than 1,800 businesses, companies and agencies, who care for more than 270,000 elderly and disabled Australians. As the Four Corners program demonstrated, we are beyond the tipping point when it comes to acceptable standards. Over the past year, my own office has received numerous complaints from constituents about the standard of care that their loved ones are receiving. They come to my office, helpless and distraught, unsure of where to go or what to do. Many are scared to complain to the centre itself, worried that by raising their concerns their loved ones will be resented for it.

Aged care is especially concerning to people in Tasmania, which has the oldest population per capita in Australia. The Council of the Aged indicates that more than 19.4 per cent of the Tasmanian population is 65 or older, that the state has a median age of 42 and that, across our state's 29 local government areas, the proportion of the population that is over 65 years is increasing. Tasmania's population is also ageing at twice the rate of the rest of Australia, with over-65s increasing by 3.4 per cent between 2011 and 2016, compared to 1.7 per cent for the rest of the country. This suggests that many of the people who are coming to live in Tasmania from other states are already in their senior years. In June 2017, during a hearing for the inquiry into the future of Australia's aged-care-sector workforce, the committee was told that by 2025 Tasmania alone will need an additional 4,000 aged-care workers to meet demand. It is clear that simply putting recruits through a training sausage factory is not good enough. We need an aged-care sector that values its employees, pays decent wages and offers secure employment and fair conditions. We need to recruit good people and keep them in the sector, not burn them out.

For some time now, my office has been trying to help Ron navigate the aged-care complaints process after his wife, Maureen, who suffers early onset dementia, was neglected during a short stay in one of Hobart's more reputable aged-care facilities. Over just a few short weeks of care, which was supposed to offer respite for Ron, he would visit Maureen to find her lying in bed or propped up in a chair—soiled and unshowered—sluggish after being dosed with valium, a medication she'd never previously been prescribed. He complained to the service a number of times and then to the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, but Maureen's care did not improve. At one point, Maureen managed to leave the facility undetected. Where she went Ron does not know, nor has he been told how long she was missing. Having withdrawn Maureen from the service, Ron now relies on her home care package for assistance and respite, which is a challenging process and service to negotiate in and of itself. As we all know, there are hundreds of thousands of people on that list. Is this the kind of care we want Australians to experience? Is this the type of care that is appropriate and acceptable? No, it's not. We need to do better for our elderly. We need to do better for aged care—every single one of us.

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