Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

  (a) Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACAT) are teams of medical professionals which run clinical and psychological checks on older Australians who have applied for home or residential aged care;

  (b) based in hospitals across the country, ACAT are ultimately responsible for assessing which older Australians should receive government-funded care;

  (c) teams usually include a nurse, plus another healthcare worker such as a physiotherapist, occupational therapist or social worker;

  (d) the Government has announced that it will privatise the ACAT workforce from April 2021, when a tender will be put out for organisations to deliver this vital assessment; and

  (e) on 14 January 2020 the Chair of the Royal Commission into Aged Care, Mr Gaetano Pagone QC, issued a statement saying the Royal Commission's interim report 'did not endorse the Government's stated position' on privatising the ACAT;

(2) supports the retention of ACAT as a publicly provided service;

(3) commends the Health Services Union, United Workers Unions and Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation for their continued advocacy on behalf of working people in healthcare across Australia, and particularly in the aged care sector; and

(4) condemns the Government for its continued failings across aged care policy.

At the end of last year, the deeply troubling interim report of the aged-care royal commission was delivered and the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, announced the government's plan to privatise aged-care assessments. At the time, the minister claimed this plan was supported by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Of course, this isn't true. Indeed, we heard the member for Monash earlier calling out this lie in this chamber. It led to a humiliating rebuke of the government in the form of an official statement from the commission chair, the Hon. Mr Pagone QC. The statement read:

Public concern has been expressed about statements made by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians that we had decided to support the privatisation of the Aged Care Assessment Teams in our Interim Report. I take this opportunity to make clear that the Interim Report did not endorse the Government's stated position …

This is, quite frankly, an extraordinary move for the commissioner to make. It indicates how misleading the minister's claim was and how questionable his proposal is.

Aged-care assessment teams are a core feature of aged care in this country. They are the first interaction that older Australians have with the aged-care system and a critical first step in getting a home care package or moving into residential aged care. They are the ultimate arbiters of what older Australians need and they are responsible for determining what sort of government-funded care is available.

There are many arguments that the process could be improved. Sure, we can streamline the process and improve the assessments, but this in no way supports privatisation. There are important roles which are filled by qualified people who know what they're doing. Why would private companies be able to do it better, especially given that they have to make a profit as well as deliver a service?

When the two conflict, as they inevitably will, can we be sure that service standards and older Australians' interests will prevail? It is no secret that the Liberals are obsessed with privatisation. There is not a public enterprise they wouldn't sell off if they thought there was a buyer. It's equally common knowledge that privatisation has not delivered. Aged care is far too important to entrust to this sort of experiment.

I commend the Health Services Union, the United Workers Union and the Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation for their continued advocacy on behalf of people working in healthcare across Australia and particularly the aged-care sector. I know there are many people in these unions who are gravely concerned about what this will mean for the workforce and for the quality of services. Indeed, I have met with some in my own electorate. They told me that no private provider would be capable of offering the breadth of skills to assess the complex needs of hundreds of thousands of older Australians. They shared their fears that the more expensive parts of the service would be shut down or indeed pushed back onto governments. They warned of the very legitimate risk of conflict of interest if companies that are running the nursing homes are also given permission to conduct the assessments.

Who can blame them for questioning this government and its plans, given its track record on aged care so far? The Liberals have mismanaged and underfunded aged care for six years. We've seen four different ministers and billions of dollars ripped out of the system. We've seen appalling cases of abuse and neglect. Most distressingly, we've seen 30,000 older Australians pass away whilst waiting for a home care package in just the last two years. Make no mistake: our aged care system is in crisis. But the answer is not to privatise ACAT. Even the New South Wales health minister, Minister Brad Hazzard, has called out this half-baked plan, saying:

It seems pre-emptive and unreasonable to be effectively privatising health aged-care services while the royal commission into aged care is still under way.

Australia already has a network of experienced, qualified and highly trained workers delivering aged-care assessments across the country. The government should focus on fixing the diabolical problems in aged care, not selling off these vital services to the highest bidder.

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