Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the amendments to the home-care packages that have been put through the Senate and have now returned to the House. I want to highlight why these are so important. It really comes back to my experience in my community in Wentworth. I was in Paddington recently at Five Ways, doing a pop-up office, and I had three people come and talk to me about their own experience of home-care packages and how they just could not understand—when they had been assessed as needing something, knowing that they needed something, doing their best as members of the community who wanted to stay at home—not being able to get the help that they needed to stay out of aged care. They could not understand why their packages were going to take months or up to a year or so, so they could get that support that they had been identified as needing. They felt that, once a need was identified, the help would be there. This disconnect between the need being identified and recognised and the help being delivered was unintelligible to them. I think it's unintelligible to most Australians. I want to say that this is a really important change that has been put through.

I recognise that the government has been trying to make home aged care and care for older Australians more sustainable. That is a good thing. That is a very positive thing. But home care is really critical to that. Home care is both a good economic choice—if we can keep people out of aged care, it is better in terms of the cost—and, most importantly, a good choice for people's families and for people's own mental health. It is what they want. Both bringing the additional 20,000 packages and bringing forward those packages earlier in the year are really critical when we are seeing such a growth of people on the waiting list desperately needing help and not being able to get it.

I also want to acknowledge everyone who has played a part in this. I wrote to the government last year about my concerns with home-care packages, based on the feedback I'd got from constituents. I was proud to work with Senator Pocock and others earlier, just after the election, when there was concern that the packages would be delayed, to say that they should not be delayed. I've been proud to stand up with other members of the crossbench and across the parliament to say: 'This is important. These changes are required, and it's time to put them through.' This is a positive day for the parliament. This is a good choice, and I'm proud to have been part of that. Certainly my community will be extremely grateful for the changes that have been made to this bill.

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