House debates

Monday, 3 December 2018

Private Members' Business

Aged Care

6:05 pm

Photo of Matt ThistlethwaiteMatt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

If you want an example of how the chaos and instability of this government is affecting the lives of average Australians then look no further than the crisis that this government has developed in our aged care home care packages sector. The latest report from this government indicates that 126,000 Australians are waiting for a home care package. Sixty-nine thousand of those are without any home care package at all. So there are many who are waiting for an upgrade, but 69,000 are waiting with no home care package at all. And 300 have been waiting for a package for more than two years.

Every MP in this place will have been lobbied by constituents about the need for home care packages for relatives or for friends, and the stories are quite harrowing—elderly Australians unable to care for themselves, in impossible situations; children and grandchildren having to take on caring responsibilities for elderly relatives because they can't get the necessary support from this government; children having to quit their jobs just to look after their parents, because this government won't provide enough support for home care packages. The system of aged care is supposed to promote remaining in the family home for as long as possible, with the support of government through home care packages, to avoid people going into more costly residential care. This is a system that we have developed in the Commonwealth parliament over many years in recent times, to take that pressure off what is an already burdened residential aged-care sector. What this government is doing, by denying people those home care packages, is the complete opposite of the way the system should be working. The system was designed to take pressure off residential aged care, where there are limited beds throughout the country.

Ultimately, elderly Australians aren't getting the necessary support that they need and deserve within their homes to live a rewarding and fulfilling life. And the cost to the Commonwealth budget will blow out, as a result of people not getting the support that they deserve and need in their home, because we all know that, if someone doesn't get that support, if they don't get the necessary access to services to help them live within their home, they tend to go downhill quicker and end up being in residential care earlier than they otherwise would have. And we all know that that is costly, not only to the individual involved but to the government as well, in providing that residential aged-care support.

This government has an appalling record when it comes to supporting the elderly in our community, not only through the pension system but also in terms of aged care and residential packages. They've cut $1.2 billion from aged-care services in this country from the 2015 budget onwards. In their recent budget, they finally listened to the community and announced that they would provide an additional 14,000 new home care packages. But guess what? There was no additional funding. Not only are those 14,000 a drop in the ocean which won't deal with the 126,000 that are on the waiting list—14,000 is woefully inadequate—but also this is funding that was redirected from elsewhere within the department. It wasn't new funding. It was funding that had simply been taken from another area and redirected into home care packages. So it's not going to deal with the issue that is the crisis in aged care and home care packages in this country.

The government's response is to launch a royal commission, and we all know that they're going to use this as an excuse to delay action and to delay whittling down that waiting list for home care packages in this country. Well, the view of the Labor Party is that they can't use this as an excuse. They need to provide the support for elderly Australians in their homes—which elderly Australians deserve—immediately. This deserves the attention of the government immediately.

This is why Labor is proposing to look at restricting negative gearing; to cut back on capital gains tax deductions; to, finally, properly tax family trusts; and to ensure that the franking credit system in this country works more efficiently and effectively, to ensure that we have the funding to provide that extra support for people in their elderly years, both through home care packages and through residential care. It is only the Labor Party that is listening to the welfare of elderly people in this country, and it is only Labor that is responding to those concerns about home care packages. (Time expired)

Comments

No comments