Matt Smith (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for the opportunity to talk about some of the difficulties facing the aged-care system. I don't think it's any surprise that there are challenges out there. After decades of neglect from those opposite, the LNP, we are working hard to rebuild a system that fell apart. I am not the one who came up with the word 'neglect'. The royal commission told us that the system was broken, neglected by the LNP, and Australians agreed. Neglect—let that word hang in the air. The greatest honour that we have is to take care of our old people. When the word 'neglect' is used, thrown around by nothing less than a royal commission, then those who are responsible should hang their heads in shame. It is a disgrace, a national disgrace. Our old people built this country. They provide the culture. They provided opportunity for all of us. Neglect!

Do you know how many residential aged-care centres there are north of Cairns? One—the Star of the Sea, on Thursday Island. That's it. It is 2½ days of driving from Cairns to Bamaga. From there you hop on a boat and go to Horn Island, where you hop on another boat to get to Thursday Island. There are a lot of people between Cairns and the Torres Strait who deserve aged care, have deserved aged care and have never received it. In areas where culture breathes and lives, it is important to elders and their community that they live their ageing days on country and that they die on country. Neglect has robbed that from those communities.

There is a massive amount of work to be done. It is something that we are tackling—83,000 aged-care packages into people's homes to keep them longer where they grew up. Everybody knows there has been a problem, but only one side seems interested in fixing it. If those opposite had been interested in fixing it, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. I wouldn't be advocating for residential aged care right across the Cape. We wouldn't have to bring the elders down to the Pinangba Hollingsworth elders centre, where there are wings for each individual community. People could stay close to home, where the Songlines are, where the Dreaming is.

But it's not just Indigenous communities. It's Cooktown. It's Weipa, Mossman, Mareeba—large towns of up to 10,000 or 15,000 people. The old people built these towns. I was sitting at the funeral of an elder in the Torres Strait whose family was telling me how he'd built the school, cut down the trees and then worked his way down the Cape. These are the people we owe everything to—everything—and for 10 years they were left to languish. Now, as a political pointscoring job, we're taking a swing, when work is being done right now to improve the situation and the lives of our elder Australians.

We care and acknowledge what our older Australians have given to us. One day I will have the privilege of looking after my parents. I've got to convince them to move from Victoria to Cairns, but they'll get there—the weather will probably help! That is an honour that I don't shirk, it is an honour that we in this place do not shirk, and it is an honour that we on this side do not shirk. When aged care continues to be rolled out, our programs matter. The word 'neglect' will never, ever be able to be used in conjunction with the way a Labor government treats our elders.

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