Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am honoured to rise tonight to bring to light an issue not given priority by this government. Australia has an ageing population, and so with it grows the burden of supporting Australians in aged-care facilities. Without the government allocating a significant proportion of its budget to aged care and disability services, this burden is shifted from the government to the shoulders of families and friends of members of our ageing and disabled population.

I would like to take this opportunity to honour a family from my electorate affected by the tragic events that occurred at the Quakers Hill nursing home last Friday. Caesar and Valentina Galea migrated to Australia from Italy to start a new life, fraught with challenges but filled with hope and reward. The Galeas worked hard to contribute to Australia as well as their local community, working hard to build a life and a future not just for themselves but for their children and their grandchildren. I was humbled to celebrate their 60th anniversary with them in recent years. Their love for and commitment to one another inspired their children, their grandchildren and many others who have known them to seek happiness and love not just for their families but also for their communities. Following the fire, sadly, Caesar passed away last night in Hawkesbury Hospital. I would like to particularly thank all those who looked after and cared for him in recent days, but on behalf of the House I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to Caesar's family.

The struggle Caesar's family have experienced in recent months is not uncommon to many Australian families. Due to the endless waiting lists, Caesar and Valentina did not live in the same nursing home, despite efforts by their children and broader family. When I spoke with the family today what they raised with me was the battle that they experienced to have their mother and father together. They expressed frustration and heartbreak for a family so close, for a couple married for more than 60 years.

In recent weeks I have had many more families visit my electorate office to share their own challenges with aged and disabled care. Many have spoken to me about the long waiting lists and how it seems to be an impossibility to have their parents, grandparents or, in some cases, children gain access to aged-care facilities. Just last week, I spoke with the mother of a 47-year-old woman, a wife and a mother who suffered a brain aneurysm. She is now very disabled and has been assessed as needing high-care facilities and unsuitable for rehabilitation. This woman, at 47 years young, needs to be placed into a nursing home. Clearly, not only are we faced with a lack of facilities for the aged population but also a lack of facilities for young people with disabilities.

It is not just families who are frustrated. It is nurses, carers and administrators in nursing homes who experience the torment daily of having to place citizens on waiting lists and watch families struggle to battle through a sea of red tape just to have their family members be able to access the proper care and attention they need in their older age. Our aged-care system needs urgent attention. Not only does more money need to be allocated to this sector, but that money needs to be actually delivered to this sector and not reallocated to other areas. The government commissioned a Productivity Commission inquiry and released its report, Caring for older Australians, on 8 August 2011. Since that date, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing have embarked on a 'national conversation' about aged-care services. There were 58 recommendations made in the report. So far neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister for Health and Ageing have responded to the report, which begs the question: who is actually having this conversation? The Gillard government cannot afford to be complacent on this issue. With the recommendations of the report hanging in the wake of the budget blow-out, it is anticipated that the Prime Minister and the minister for health will not be conversing on this topic again until next year's budget is released. For many Australians, this is not soon enough. Families are doing it tough.

The family that I spoke to today, the Galeas, understand that what happened to their father, grandfather, husband, happened as a result of behaviour by one individual; that it is not the responsibility of the aged-care sector that this happened. But what they have experienced over recent months has brought to their attention what many other Australians are battling with on a daily basis. What they wanted me to do tonight was to say that they want to see this government respond to the real needs of ageing Australians and their families and provide the funding so that they can have access to care close to their families, close to those they love, and that, wherever possible, where couples have been married for a long period of time they are cared for together.