Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

More than 120,000 older Australians are waiting. They're waiting for something that should be their right, and that's their right to an adequate home care package after a lifetime of paying taxes, hard work and service to our nation. Now, in the latter years of their lives, they've been left in limbo by the Morrison government. Many are waiting more than two years for the care they have already been approved for. Our elderly citizens are amongst society's most vulnerable in our population, and many depend on others for care.

Many of our senior Australians who are needing support can and want to stay in their homes, yet more than 16,000 older Australians died waiting for their home-care packages that were assessed and approved in 2017-18. That's completely unacceptable. What will it take for the Prime Minister to finally wake up and fix this crisis? These really have been lost years for older Australians waiting for care. There are around 14,000 older Australians who entered residential care prematurely as a result of the lack of adequate home-care packages. That's because they couldn't get the care they were assessed for when it was approved in 2017-18.

Bad government translates to bad outcomes for our vulnerable older Australians, their families and carers. The number of older Australians waiting for home care has grown from 88,000 to 120,000 since 2017. There has been a lack of reform and investment in aged care, both in the home-care sector and in the residential aged-care sector, and we condemn the Morrison government for its inadequate response to the royal commission's interim report and for not providing home care for our older Australians in need. At the royal commission, we heard stories of degradation, suffering, abuse, neglect and systemic failure. We heard that up to half of older Australians in residential aged care are malnourished. The Morrison government's own interim report for the royal commission said it needed to do more on home care. It simply is not good enough that this government has said the recommendations from the interim report are now done and dusted, and it awaits the full report.

Talking with older Australians, their families and carers puts this crisis into perspective. They're genuinely feeling the impact of the government's inaction. I've spoken to a 92-year-old in my electorate who has been waiting for more than 12 months for an aged-care package that she has been assessed for. Ninety-two years old: surely someone in that situation should be prioritised and given access to an aged-care package urgently! We regularly hear from older Australians who are desperate, because they can't get through the My Aged Care service. New figures show that an average of 118 calls a day to the government's aged-care helpline went unanswered in the past year, and yet access to information is critical for older Australians or loved ones calling on their behalf. People shouldn't have to come to a member of parliament's office to be able to navigate the aged-care system.

The fact is that the government have cut aged-care funding, they've slashed it, and they did it while this Prime Minister was the then Treasurer. The consequences are now being felt. The Productivity Commission's figures around wait times for aged care in Australia show just how much more the Morrison government has to do to fix the aged-care system in this country. With wait times blowing out almost 300 per cent for residential aged care and with home-care wait lists continuing to grow, the government clearly hasn't done enough.

More than one million older Australians are receiving aged-care services, and they deserve better now. Particularly, those who have been assessed for home-care packages and are now waiting for them. We've seen over recent weeks how this government tried to privatise the assessment teams. This is one of the most important and fundamental roles of government, going into people's homes and assessing them for aged-care packages, so it says everything about this government that it tried to privatise that service. It was only after Labor shone a spotlight on this and pressured the government that they backed down last week.

Older Australians deserve our respect, but, under the Liberals, all they're getting are growing waiting times for care that they have been approved for. It says everything about a society in terms of how well you treat your vulnerable. Whether it goes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme or this government's treatment of older Australians, they have failed dismally when it comes to protecting the vulnerable in Australia.

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