Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (Implementing Care Reform) Bill 2022. I'm very proud that the government has brought this bill forward and honoured its commitment to older Australians and to implementing the royal commission. I think the government is taking the right steps in ensuring that we implement all practical measures to guarantee older Australians get the aged care that they deserve. For too long we've seen neglect in this area—neglect from the previous government, neglect from a whole range of media attention that aged-care homes were getting and neglect for our older Australians, which is shameful in a nation such as Australia, where we don't have the proper care to look after people who have worked all their lives. They've paid their taxes. Some have fought in wars. In years to come, we will be measured for what sort of a nation we were by the treatment of our older Australians.

As I said, older Australians have worked hard all their lives. They've contributed to our society, our communities and our economy. They deserve nothing short of being supported with dignity and humanity in their frailer years. That's the least that governments can offer. This bill will ensure that we are able to do that. This goes hand in hand with our commitment to fight not only for a better system for our older Australians but also for a pay rise for Australia's aged-care workers. We know that a lot of the problems stem from not giving dignity, as well, to people who work in the aged-care sector. We recently made a submission to the Fair Work Commission that supports a wage increase for aged-care workers.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was clear that one of the problems was the undervalued, underpaid and highly casualised workforce in aged care, and the previous government ignored that recommendation. On this side of the House, we won't. We will fight for a better future for those aged-care workers, the carers, and the most important people, the residents of aged-care facilities. If we don't start paying aged-care workers properly, we won't be able to attract and retain enough staff to care for our loved ones as our population ages.

The government's committed to stopping the neglect in the aged-care sector. We want to ensure that older Australians are cared for with security, dignity and humanity. We acknowledge the hard work of dedicated staff in aged care and a lot of aged-care facilities that are doing great work. We know that the pandemic made it even harder, and we saw some of those horrific pictures on our TV of people dying from COVID-19 in many of the aged-care facilities around the country. I think that increasing wages and job security and encouraging more people to work in aged care will give nurses and carers more time to care.

This is more important than ever, given the sector shortages that were created over the last few years by the pandemic and, of course, by the inattention to this area by the previous government. This problem is also contributing to the gender pay gap—to low pay and poor conditions in care sectors like aged care, where the majority of workers are female. This is a serious problem, as we heard again during the recent Jobs and Skills Summit. So increasing wages in aged care is essential to ensuring that men and women are paid equally and continue to contribute equally to Australia's productivity.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we're also delivering on our election commitment to improve this sector. One way we're doing that is through transparency in the aged-care system. This bill will introduce measures to monitor the costs associated with aged care. Providers will have greater responsibility to be transparent and fair; they will need to publish more information about their operations, including what they're spending money on. We will also be delivering on our election commitment to stop the rorting of home-care fees. This will be done by placing a cap on how much can be charged in admin and management fees. In addition, we'll remove the exit amounts altogether. This is very important.

In my electorate, I—like all of us in this chamber—have heard from many older Australians who are receiving home-care packages. One of the things that comes up time and time again is that they don't understand where the fees are going when they're not getting the service that they signed up for. They find the system confusing and fear that a big chunk of what they're paying is not actually going to the services that they require for assistance and help in their homes and not going to the services that they are receiving.

This measure will enable the government to cap these charges and maximise available funding to address the care needs of more than 210,000 older Australians currently receiving home-care packages. We want to ensure that there is pricing transparency for consumers and providers and greater clarity about direct and indirect costs. In short, home-care users need to be confident that the money is going directly to care, not to the bottom line of providers.

Other measures that we're introducing include the star rating system. This means that the Department of Health and Aged Care will, in future, publish a comparison rating for all residential aged-care services by the end of 2022, giving users and their families more peace of mind. In addition, the secretary of the department will make information on residential aged-care services and provider expenditure publicly available. This includes what is spent on labour, workers, care, food, nutrition, cleaning, admin, maintenance, and profit or loss. The information will be published online and will help inform consumers' choice of residential aged-care services and providers.

In addition, from 1 December 2022, approved providers and their governing bodies will be required to meet new responsibilities that will improve governance. They will need to notify the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission of changes to key personnel. The current disqualified-individual arrangements will also be replaced with a broader suitability test. We're also extending the Serious Incident Response Scheme to all in-home care providers from 1 December 2022. This is because of the horror stories we heard during the royal commission. We need to increase protection for older Australians from preventable incidents, from abuse, from neglect and from those horrible things that were reported in the royal commission. We'll improve information sharing between care and support sector regulators, as well—in other words, streamlining so that they both have the information. This will enable proactive monitoring of risks across the sectors and better protection of the participants from harm. That was one of the issues that came up—that people who had been disqualified from one particular aged-care provider could quite easily move into another one without these checks and balances. We're also introducing a new code of conduct for approved providers, their workforce and governing persons.

We take this responsibility very seriously, and I think each and every one of us in this chamber has a duty to do so. As I said, we must fix the aged-care system and we must provide the care that elderly Australians require so they can live with dignity in their frail years, whether it be in home care or whether it be in a facility that looks after them. We must fix this system.

This bill goes a long way to protecting the safety, dignity and wellbeing of every older Australian accessing aged-care services, and it demonstrates that there is a willingness from this government, a commitment to ensure a fair, transparent system for older Australians, their families and their carers and a commitment to the welfare and conditions of these incredible people who care for older Australians. In short, we're putting security, dignity and humanity back into aged care. I'm proud to be speaking on this bill and to be part of a government that takes the care of older Australians very seriously, because all Australians need to have trust in the system that looks after some of our most vulnerable people. They deserve nothing less.

This bill also goes on to include many measures that will provide additional protections directly to older Australians. These protections are long overdue. The bill implements three of our government's urgent election commitments, as well—to put security, dignity, quality and humanity back into aged care.

As of 1 July 2023, the bill will introduce the requirement to have a registered nurse, for example, on site and on duty at each facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is incredible that at this point there is no requirement for a registered nurse to be available to administer particular medicines or drugs in a nursing home. What happens if there is a requirement to administer a drug or a medicine, or some of the care that's required that has to be done by a registered nurse, and there isn't one onsite at 1 am, 2 am or 3 am? Normally, they may ring a doctor if they can get one. If they can't, the residents are put into an ambulance and sent off to the public hospital. This would help clear two angles: (1) waiting times at public hospitals and (2) giving the care that's required right then and there for those residents in the aged-care facility. The royal commission made this a clear recommendation because it recognised the value of having on-site nursing care. It will save thousands of stressful, expensive and ultimately unnecessary trips to emergency departments all around the country.

Consistent with recommendation 86 of the royal commission, the bill will also provide a mechanism for some exemptions. These will be finalised once experts in the residential aged-care sector have been consulted. However, it's important to note that any exemption framework will provide for tightly targeted exemptions. They could perhaps be in rural and remote areas. They could be in areas where the workforce is very hard to find. They could be in towns where it is the only aged-care facility for a radius of many kilometres. There will be many very important and strict conditions to the framework.

We must recognise that older Australians have contributed to this nation. They've worked, they've paid taxes and, as I've said many, many times in this place, they have built the foundations that we stand on today to enjoy a wonderful life in this wonderful country. If we have got a great country, it's because of those that came before us, those that fought in wars, those that did hard labour and those that had the foresight to build those foundations for the next generation of Australians. We have a duty to those people that they will live out their last few years with dignity, humanity and respect.

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