Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Industry and Support) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very grateful to have been able to follow, in my speech on the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018, the member for Macquarie—outstanding member that she is—and particularly on this subject, because it's the member for Macquarie who has rendered great service to my own mother, who has been in this situation and is in dire need of in-home support and care in what are the declining months of her life. I'm extremely grateful to the member for her personal intervention and assistance, and I know that that is the sort of support and service she has been rendering to all of her community. She has been a great adornment to this chamber, and we are very fortunate to have her. But it does highlight the very issues that she has been talking about. It's wonderful to see the great line-up of Labor members that have been vitally interested in this issue, showing the deep concern and commitment we have always had. I think the Australian community understands that and gives us credit for giving priority to issues like health and aged care.

When we were in government, we introduced the Living Longer Living Better policy, and that was embraced by the Australian community wholeheartedly. It is very evident that the Australian people want to be able to stay in their homes as long as they possibly can, and certainly that has been the situation with my mother.

The problem is that the initial introduction of that policy, not long before we left government, left work to be done—work we hoped would be done by a committed government, in a bipartisan way, that would take the intent of that policy and the lessons learned and see that that policy was delivered. But what we saw was exactly the opposite. The Aged Care Funding Instrument, which was an essential element of the Living Longer Living Better program, was cut savagely by Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, and also the health minister under his government. And of course the current Prime Minister, as Treasurer, also axed about $2 billion from the system.

Now we're in this situation where, the statistics suggest, the waiting lists for these in-home care packages are exponentially rising and, I believe, are now around the 120,000 mark. What was the answer from the government to this escalating need and issue? It was to offer 3,000 new packages in the last budget—3,000, when we're up to about 120,000 on the waiting list at the moment. They've said, 'Yes, but it's 14,000 actually.' Well, it's 14,000 over the forward estimates, of four years, at which time they will be severely outpaced by the exponential growth of the waiting list. So this problem is not being addressed by the government, and the Australian people are crying out for it to be addressed.

We must provide the wherewithal for Australians to be able to live at home for as long as they possibly can. And that's what Labor will do.

This legislation was introduced to answer the recommendations that were handed down by the Carnell-Paterson review, to establish this Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, which is something we would support as one step forward. But—as we have seen from so much of the information that has emerged into the public space recently—there is so much more in this sector that needs to be addressed. Certainly, on this side of the House, we have been banging that drum for a long time, highlighting the effects that these savage cuts to the system have been causing—

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