John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the Labor Party for giving us the opportunity to speak about aged care. In Bennelong we have some of the best aged-care centres in Australia—in my unbiased view! Over the last decade I've visited every aged-care centre in the electorate, most of them on numerous occasions. I've had the pleasure of visiting them for the birthdays of residents, for the birthdays of buildings and for the opening of new facilities. I've taken delight in showing them off to aged-care ministers; I have taken aged-care ministers to multiple centres.

The great thing about these centres is always the staff. They are caring, selfless, disciplined, loving and dedicated to the people they care for, often in trying circumstances. I remember visiting Opal Aged Care at Westside a few years ago to attend their staff awards, when I presented recognition of service to employees who had worked there for 15 years, 20 years and 25 years. And there were many awards to give. I marvel at the dedication of people who could do such a demanding job consistently for so many years.

Working at an aged-care facility in Bennelong brings even more challenges. We are one of the country's most multicultural electorates, which creates challenges for people as they age. Deteriorating mental capacity often comes with a loss of language, and, for many, the first language to go is the most recent: English. San Antonio da Padova Nursing Home gets around this by having many bilingual staff who can speak Italian for those residents who have reverted to their mother tongue. The skills some of our carers possess are really incredible.

The last year has been tough on our aged-care centres. COVID enforced their shut down for extremely logical safety concerns, but the restriction of visitors had real impacts on the welfare of people in these homes and on the families of residents. I had many calls from local residents who just wanted to see their mums and dads, but our restrictions put in place to save lives enforced a long segregation. If we need reminding of why, we just need to look across the electorate to Dorothy Henderson lodge. This home in Bennelong was the first aged-care centre to have an outbreak of COVID and, sadly, the first to have a fatality. But it was also the first to declare the all clear. Thanks to the incredible work and sacrifices made by the staff and residents, we avoided the level of tragedy that was seen in other aged-care centres. Critically, the experience of the people at Dorothy Henderson gave us a playbook on how to avoid these types of tragedies in the future. As we compare our aged-care centres to the devastation seen across the world, we can be confident we learnt the right lessons and implemented them correctly.

That brings me to the aged-care commission. While most aged-care providers, services and homes are good, some need more support and some need reforms. It's not okay that we leave anybody behind at this age. So it was important that we had this royal commission to gather the facts about where we can improve. Now the report is in, the government has committed millions to address it with six recommendations put forward, which I'm confident will remedy the many shortcomings in the system. Like in the response to COVID, when crisis occurs we must learn from it to ensure it doesn't happen again elsewhere. The royal commission is critically important, but we cannot let its headlines distract us from the daily running of the aged-care system, which must continue through pandemic, flood and whatever else is around the corner. That is why I'm proud to be a part of a government that is delivering record investment across the aged-care sector over the forward estimates, from $13.3 billion in 2012-13 under Labor growing to $24.3 billion in 2020-21. On current projections, on average, there will be $1.5 billion of extra support for older Australians each year over the forward estimates, so aged-care funding will reach more than $27 billion in 2023-24. This government is funding aged care and acting on the results of the royal commission. We must remember that this all comes back to the family who entrust their relatives to the care of our aged-care system. It must always be about them, the resident. I commend the government for the reforms they are making to ensure—(Time expired)

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