Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

It is an incredibly positive thing to rise and support these amendments. These amendments were hard fought, I think it's fair to say, and I want to talk to each of these amendments individually. The first amendment I would like to talk to is the 20,000 Home Care Packages that are going to be released immediately by the government, recognising that there are 106,000 people on the waiting list right now and recognising that there are 120,000 people waiting to be assessed.

When I think about these 20,000 packages, I think about a gentleman called Cyril Tooze. Cyril was a carer until he was 82—a paid carer for a gentleman with a disability. Cyril was waiting for his package, and he very well needed one of these 20,000 packages that are going to be released. Cyril ended up being hospitalised because he couldn't get that care at home last year. He was a tall man; he was about six foot tall. Cyril ended up being hospitalised and ended up choosing voluntary euthanasia because the package never came for Cyril. The packages didn't come for thousands of people who died in the last year nor, as we found out, for nearly 5,000 people this year. These were older Australians who died while waiting for a package. Cyril held my hand before he died. We had a bit of a party for Cyril, to celebrate his life, before he died. He said, 'Rebekha, I'm going to make a difference.' Well, it took a long time, but, to Cyril and all of the other older Australians, I hope you realise that all of us in here are fighting to make a difference for you.

The 20,000 packages are excellent. They are a drop in the ocean, and I'd like to acknowledge and talk to some of the other amendments. The rest of those 83,000 packages that were promised by the government last December—around the time that Cyril passed away—are now going to be released in this financial year. That's still going to leave many, many older Australians on the waiting list, but, hopefully, it will mean that we'll get to a position in this place where people are not waiting up to a year to be assessed and then up to a year, or even longer in some cases, to actually get their package. People are dying; people are losing hope; and people cannot understand why, when they can't even lift their husband to get them into the shower and when their husband can't even walk because of neurological disease, they are still just a medium priority—they're not even given high priority.

I think that these amendments that have come down from the Senate are desperately needed by our nation, by our oldest people. We in here all enjoy the nation that we live in because of them. So I commend these amendments, which were very hard-fought and won. Let us hope that we never again in Australia get to a position where we have nearly 5,000 Australians in a year dying waiting for care.

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