Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The importance of the aged-care sector has been on full display this year. Australia knows the Morrison government is committed to delivering quality care for senior Australians, particularly with our increasing commitment to home aged care—something senior Australians tell us they want. They want to be in their home for longer and for a safer period of time. This bill is an important step towards the delivery of an improved home-care system in future.

This bill has been introduced so that home-care providers are paid after they have provided services, rather than in advance, as is currently the case. This brings the payment practice in line with current government payments and, indeed, standardised practice in the private sector. The current system of home care allows for packages of $8,900 up to $51,900, and this funding has historically been provided in advance to providers. This means that money often sits untouched in providers' bank accounts and has created a rising level of unspent home-care funds.

With senior Australians increasingly choosing to remain in their own homes for longer, and the government committed to supporting this choice, this bill is important to ensuring taxpayers' money goes to delivering the services for which it is intended. Since the 2018-19 budget, the government has invested $4.6 billion for an additional 73,105 home-care packages. Home-care packages are estimated to increase from 60,000 in 2012, when we came to government, to 185,000 in the 2020-21 budget. That is a tripling of home-care packages. The 2020-21 budget includes the delivery of 23,000 home-care packages, at a cost of $1.6 million, in addition to the 6,105 packages already announced in July at a cost of $325 million.

As a government, we want to ensure the long-term sustainability of the aged-care sector. This is why we are introducing this change. Moving to payment in arrears backs our commitment to continuing to ensure that more Australians have access to home care, and that those who need it are able to access support quickly, and it prepares the system for important future reforms. This bill is an important step towards the delivery of an improved home-care system into the future to support our senior citizens.

The Morrison government is cognisant that these changes may impact the cash flows of some providers. We plan to assist this to ensure a smooth transition. In fact, the change was initially due to start in June 2020. However, in March, when COVID-19 hit, we announced that the implementation of improvements to payment arrangements for home-care packages would be placed on hold during the crisis. This was to ensure that the key focus of the aged-care sector was to help combat this virus and support older Australians. With COVID-19 now under control, it's time to introduce this important change.

The Aged Care Financing Authority has assessed that the vast majority of providers would be able to accommodate the cash-flow impact of the change in payment arrangements due to either unspent funds on hand or access to capital. The change is now set to come into effect in February 2021. At the same time, financial support will be on offer to some providers during the transition. We want to make sure that we help providers get to the other side of this crisis as well as get to the other side of the transition to a modernised payment system. Home-care providers will also be able to apply to the government's free business advisory service for advice on managing their finances.

Improving aged care for all Australians continues to be one of the government's key priorities. We are delivering a record investment across the aged-care sector—growing from $13.3 billion in 2012-13 under Labor to $23 billion in 2020-21 under the Morrison government. It is estimated that funding for aged care will grow by a further $4 billion, to $27 billion, by 2023-24. Every Australian knows that we have an ageing population. Every Australian knows that, as the baby boomers get older, we are going to need to provide more support for them. Australia is certainly not alone in that regard; every developed country has an ageing population. Senior Australians are increasingly choose to remain in their own homes for longer. The government is committed to supporting this choice—and even more so through the COVID crisis, with more than $746 million committed to aged care through the COVID response measures as part of the $1.6 billion in COVID-specific support in aged care.

I'd like to make a few remarks about the government's response to the COVID crisis and our support for the aged-care sector through this period. Although no country has been able to prevent aged-care communities from bearing the brunt of COVID deaths, Australia has done better than most—despite the community outbreak in Victoria, which now, I'm proud to say, is fully under control. Compared to other countries, our fatality rate for those in aged care is one of the lowest in the world, at around 0.1 per cent. By comparison, Canada's aged-care sector reports a death rate that is 15 times higher, Ireland's and Italy's 30 times higher and the UK's 53 times higher. We should also take solace from the fact that the vast majority of facilities in Australia have had no deaths from COVID and over 90 per cent in Victoria have had no cases of COVID. Compared to the international experience, it appears that, for the most part, we've kept COVID out of aged care.

It's also important to know that, when community transmission took hold in Victoria, there was a very rapid pivot to resources being sent directly to Victoria. We already had a national plan for aged care that had been in place and constantly updated as the COVID crisis hit Australia. But I'm proud to say that the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre was rapidly deployed to ensure that there was a person in charge in every aged-care centre that was connected back to the federal government and that our resources were made available. In particular, significant amounts of resources in the form of PPE were made available at a very rapid rate. Knowing that COVID had a predilection for the aged and infirm, the federal government acted swiftly and early to implement the world's best practices, to keep our senior citizens safe. Locally, aged-care providers in Higgins were aware a community outbreak may have devastating consequences for their residents. They acted early. And I spoke to many, if not all, of my CEOs in the seat of Higgins.

We know that locals were finding it very difficult because the local aged-care providers knew that they had to change visitation rules to minimise contact of residents with outside visitors. This was actually incredibly heartbreaking for families. I heard so many stories of residents who were suffering from dementia who were unable to see their families, and many people wrote to me about their fear that their parents may die without seeing people they'd loved and known in the previous weeks. It has been a very, very difficult period over the last few weeks and months during this lockdown period. I know that my constituents understood that these measures were necessary to keep their loved ones safe, but that is not to underestimate how significant that was. If you had a mother or a father who had dementia whom you were unable to visit, the lack of stimulation from the lack of family visits may have had a very significant impact, with a decrease in their cognitive ability over that period of time. It was heartbreaking to hear these stories and for families to know that they may not see their loved ones again as they were ageing and perhaps dying—not necessarily because of COVID—without seeing their families in those critical weeks and months at the end of their lives.

Unlike the Morrison government, delivering quality care for senior citizens does not appear to be a priority for Labor. In fact, the opposition leader's budget in-reply speech made no mention of or commitment to funding home care. There was no support for staff and nothing on quality and safety. It was quite surprising to me that that wasn't in the budget in-reply speech. Perhaps there's more to be heard.

The Morrison government has delivered and will continue to deliver on aged care. We had done so before COVID, we are now delivering during COVID and we will deliver as we move out of COVID. This bill aligns home-care payments with other government payments and ensures a sustainable system as more home-care packages are released in readiness for future reforms.

I would just like to say a few words, now that Victoria has managed to contain COVID. I know that my constituents are looking forward to being able to see their loved ones again. I know they are looking forward to being able to join in family celebrations, to return to having weddings and funerals, to visit their loved ones in hospital—to get back to life again. And I know that businesses are celebrating the opportunities to open up again.

It's been an incredibly tough and long winter. It's been an incredibly tough and long lockdown in Victoria. But I know that each and every Victorian has done the right thing in order to keep other citizens, as well as their families and their loved ones, safe. I thank them, particularly the constituents of Higgins who have written to me and rung me and provided their stories to explain to me how hard it has been for them, so that I can provide practical support and pragmatic and strong advocacy for them, to make sure that their voices are heard here in parliament but also across the Victorian government response as well.

See this speech in context