James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to this motion, can I start by saying that I'm sure everyone in this chamber has very personal experiences with the aged-care system. It's important to absolutely every Australian. Three of my four grandparents have gone through residential aged care. One, thankfully, is still with us—he's in a residential care facility at the moment—and my two grandmothers both had excellent care in the aged-care system. I really want to start by saying, despite some of the issues in the royal commission et cetera, how amazing the care that has been given to members of my family was and is.

It's certainly my judgement that, by and large, the people that work in the aged-care system do such an amazing job in caring for older Australians, and I really hope that no-one who works in the aged-care system feels that they are unfairly maligned for the great work that they do because of some bad examples that have been—and should have been—highlighted by the royal commission. It's important that we use the opportunity of the royal commission to make changes and to improve some terrible circumstances that were discovered through that process. Like all members of parliament, I visit a lot of aged-care facilities in my electorate. It's been a little bit more difficult over the last couple of years with COVID, but I'm always so impressed and grateful for the amazing work that people do in our community to look after older Australians, as do any of those that work in the care sector and as is certainly the case in the aged-care facilities that I visit in my electorate.

Yes, the royal commission highlighted some important areas of reform. It's also worth remembering when we talk about the royal commission and about reform in aged care that, probably not surprisingly, the royal commissioners weren't unanimous in the recommendations that they made in that royal commission. That really underscores that it is quite legitimate and quite reasonable for people to have different perspectives on what reform and what change needs to occur in our aged-care system. The fact is that, with all of the resourcing and the very comprehensive inquiries that were undertaken by that royal commission and by two very eminent people as royal commissioners, they weren't in unanimity on all of the recommendations that they made. That probably underscores some of the real challenges that we have in reform.

Other speakers have touched on the challenges in workforce. They are particularly significant in aged care and, frankly, across the care sector and across the economy right now. We all understand that. That's why it's really important that we get past the political bluster in some of these debates. This is a motion in this chamber, but, when we're talking about bills and reforms, we need to understand what some of those serious issues are. Workforce is going to be one of the most significant challenges, in this sector and many others, for this government to address and to look at what they are doing.

The government could probably take, frankly, a much broader view of workforce challenges than just the aged-care sector. We've got concerning issues in the broader care sector. In South Australia, for example, there's something in the media today about nurses being lured from the state of South Australia to the state of Victoria because of certain inducements that are being provided by the Victorian government, who are addressing their own workforce challenges regarding nurses. Well, us losing our nurses to the state of Victoria because of a program that the Victorian state government has put in place is not the kind of equity we want in our health system and the care system more broadly. That's one of the issues we're going to have with aged-care reform as well: how do we make sure that we're increasing the workforce, not seeing people move from one part of the workforce to another part of the workforce and therefore having a benefit in one part of a particular sector at the cost of a loss of those resources somewhere else?

We just need more people. I don't think anyone is debating that. I think we all understand that. It's very important that we as a parliament are working together on that challenge, because there are some important things we can do together to help improve how we're providing a workforce that is only going to be even more substantial, needs wise, into the future. With those comments, I'd reiterate how grateful we are for the people that work in the aged-care sector and what they're doing to care for some very cherished members of our own families and our society. I commend the work that they do.

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