Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Hansard source

I thank the member for Clark for this important motion. The royal commission's recommendations, delivered almost 2½ years ago, remain as important today as they were then. The commission envisaged an aged-care system that supports people to age with dignity in their own homes for as long as possible, and then to transition into a residential facility that offers caring, safe and affordable services if they need to do so.

Even though some years have passed since the commission delivered its report, there is much work to be done in realising this incredibly important vision. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, known as the complaints commission, is mandated to actively listen to complaints against the aged-care system and then take necessary steps to respond to them so that the system can ultimately improve. However, the royal commission found that this complaints body is 'insufficiently responsive to the experiences of older people' and that it 'does not provide enough safeguards to protect older people and provide reassurance to their families that they will receive safe and high quality aged care', especially in home care. Now, this includes both the Commonwealth Home Support Program and the Home Care Packages Program.

People who make a complaint shouldn't find the process so hard to access, and their complaint should not go unanswered—experiences that the royal commission found were happening regularly. On the recommendation of the royal commission, the Minister for Aged Care ordered an independent review of the complaints commission. These findings and recommendations were released only two weeks ago, and I urge the minister to carefully consider and respond to this review as a high priority, as one step towards improving older Australians' experience of the aged-care system.

One recommendation in particular stood out to me, and it was this one: that the commission must acquire a better understanding of the diverse needs and circumstances of aged-care consumers and their communities, including older people living in regional and remote communities. And I know that the constituents who call in to my office to talk about their experiences with the aged-care system would thoroughly agree with this recommendation. There is a real sense that the struggles of regional communities are not heard, let alone understood.

Too frequently my office hears stories of older people and their families who are desperately trying to find home-care providers, but, being in a regional, rural or remote area, there are just not enough of them. Providers say that they can't find the staff to do the work. If the complaints commissioner is to handle complaints effectively, they must understand this limitation that we have in rural and regional Australia.

In Wodonga, the biggest town in my electorate of Indi, there are currently no government subsidised providers available for home maintenance services like minor repairs, window cleaning and weeding. The waitlist to receive these services essential to keep people in their homes is a staggering 2,000 people long—yes, that's right. That's in Wodonga.

In Benalla, the third-biggest town, private providers are at capacity and clients are left for long periods without services and there are last-minute cancellations, changing workers and very little continuity of care. I have heard deeply concerning stories about people waiting well over a month to have their house cleaned. I've met with Age Friendly Benalla, the University of the Third Age and Benalla Rural City Council about this crisis. I've written to the Interim Inspector-General of Aged Care asking that they do something to get this back on track.

Another example is the Strathbogie shire, where there is only one service provider for outreach into homes. Many constituents have written in describing how they completed an application for home care and were approved for a plan, only to hear back that the provider had closed its books. One constituent who has been waiting for help for months wrote to me to say:

The Australian Government state they aim to help older Australians in their home by providing services to achieve this outcome. Unfortunately this is not a reality.

Sadly, this constituent could not be more correct. Home-care services are still in crisis, especially in regional Australia.

The government must show that it grasps the extent of this problem. It must actively listen to rural and regional experiences in consultation on the new Support at Home Program. It must also provide proper powers and resources to the bodies set up to handle aged-care complaints so that the experiences in rural, regional and remote Australia can be addressed and fixed. (Time expired)

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