Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think we know that the chair has my absolute respect. It just shows the ignorance from those opposite on what this is about and their seriousness about aged care. I think he's the member for Casey. Healesville is in Casey. We actually went to those places to look after them—to actually go and see what was going on and see what they were dealing with. It's interesting that you find the ability to laugh about the idea of having nurses back in hospitals and trying to take pressure off ambulance systems—that's a really intelligent thing to do! But it's not unexpected, I guess, because, when we talk about investing in health and aged care and bringing people together, the only people who sit in this place who don't want to do that are those sitting in the leftovers of the LAP.

The 2020 Aged Care Workforce Census reported 80 per cent of residential facilities having registered nurses, but we need to get those numbers up, and to recognise the difficulties, as mentioned by previous speakers, about the shortages. These are not people you can just turn a tap to get—'Do a four week course and away you go.' These are people who have very special talents and the ability to work in a very tough area. It's not easy to find people with the compassion and the ability to work in aged care. I know. When I see them doing it every day, I'm in awe of it. The ability to do the things they do is just something special.

Today I met with workers from the ASU about what's happening there, and in my area we've seen a lot of growth in the aged-care facilities but what we also see now in our communities is councils walking away from this. Victoria has the best community care sector in the country, and councils are walking away from that. It's easy to sit there and say, 'Oh, we'll just get an outside provider to come in.' But I'll tell you what: it doesn't happen. Outside providers focus on one thing: profit. As to the idea that people are going to drive an hour and a half out of Melbourne to go to a regional area to give people care—it just doesn't happen. You can absolutely go to private providers, but they are not there in the regions, in the small towns, in the country communities where we need them. And that's not something new. It has been happening for a long time. And it's harder and harder to get people. We use this analogy about people working in aged care: they get paid less than someone working at Bunnings on a Sunday. That's not right.

It goes back to what I said at the start: this is about how we, as a country, see ourselves. It's about how we treat and respect the most vulnerable in our community.

This is an issue that has been developing for a long time, and this House should be supporting every opportunity to help this government deliver its promises and help deliver better aged care for our communities, because it's one thing that we are all going to face one day. We're all going to get there, hopefully, or our families are going to be in aged care. And what we need to be able to do is stand back and say, 'We've done everything we can do to help make it better, safer and more dignified.' If that means making sure that they get proper food and proper care and that they have face-to-face contact with people, then that's the least we can do for the generations of people that have built this country and made it what it is. With those remarks, I commend this bill to the House and wish it a very, very speedy passage.

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