Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not my intention to try to detain the House for very long, but I do appreciate the opportunity to outline Labor's position on the Aged Care Amendment (Movement of Provisionally Allocated Places) Bill 2019. The Aged Care Act is to be amended, as, in its current form, it does not permit a variation of the region to which residential aged-care places are provisionally allocated. My understanding is this bill will allow the Secretary of the Department of Health or her delegates to allow approved providers of residential aged care to move provisionally allocated residential aged-care places from one region to another within that state or territory.

The Department of Health is not seeking the power to move provisionally allocated places from one state or territory to another. This bill will not allow the movement of any provisionally allocated places outside the state or territory to which it was originally allocated, and I put that on the record to ensure that that does not occur because we understand that that's not allowed under the bill as it has been drafted. We understand that, under this amendment bill, providers must demonstrate the movement of the provisionally allocated places is in the interest of aged-care consumers and that there is a clear need for places in the new region being proposed. The amendment bill will seek to ensure that residential aged care is available as quickly as possible to those older Australians who require it and is appropriately allocated to address local needs. There appears to be no financial impact for the Australian government by these proposed amendments, because those places are allocated through the ACAR rounds.

It's not my intention to detain the House, and Labor doesn't want to cause any issues or delay this bill going through, but I do need to put on record that, after almost six years of cuts in the aged care portfolio, any announcements that are made tonight in relation to aged care—and particularly in relation to home care packages—will not fool older Australians, their families or their loved ones. Let's be really frank about this: the government has mucked up aged care to the point where it had to call a royal commission into the quality and safety of aged-care services in this country. We all know that more than 128,000 older Australians are currently on the waitlist for home care packages; 69,000 of those have no package at all allocated to them at this point in time and the others are on interim packages—that is, packages below the level of support that they require.

The government of course has made some announcements in the last few months in relation to aged care and home care packages, but let's not forget the cuts that they made to aged care. I do want to put them on the record: $110 million cut to the dementia supplement in residential aged care, almost $500 million cut in the 2015 MYEFO and a $1.2 billion cut to the aged care funding instrument in the 2016-17 budget. The architect of these cuts, almost $2 billion worth, was the current Prime Minister when he was Treasurer.

Recently it was revealed how the $1.2 billion cut has had an impact on the residential aged-care sector. We are hearing about it all the time. Departmental briefings confirmed that residential aged-care funding has gone backwards for those with complex needs. Departmental briefings described older Australians as 'winners' and 'losers' and revealed for the first time that funding for those with complex healthcare needs in residential aged care went backwards as a result of the Prime Minister's $1.2 billion cut. Funding for residents went backwards and staff cutbacks and aged-care 'losers'—according to the department—tripled. So let's not shy away from the fact that this government has taken billions of dollars out over six years, and any announcements tonight and over the next six weeks are not going to make up for those billions of dollars cut and the neglect of and lack of focus on aged care until the last few months.

Let's be honest: the government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to deal with this aged-care issue. It has only been because of the families who are contacting the offices of members of parliament every day trying to get reasonable aged-care services for their parents or their family members. Every day, my office and other offices in this place are taking calls from people desperate to get their loved ones home care packages. It is about time the government did something about this. It has been leaked to the Sunday papers to say that there are going to be home care packages in the budget tonight. That is welcome, but it's really not going to fool older Australians into thinking that this government does care about older Australians or has been focused on them for the last six years, because we know, with all the internal chaos and division, the government has been only focused on itself. Any increases tonight in home care packages will be really about the government trying to save itself and not about older Australians.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian population is ageing, and senior Australians and their families deserve to have access to high-quality aged care and services when they need them. Integral to this is supporting approved providers to make residential aged-care places ready for use as quickly as possible. The comments that were offered by the shadow minister are not a true reflection of the reality that has occurred since the Productivity Commission report. The challenges that are embedded in the aged-care sector arise from the time of the Productivity Commission report, the choosing of its recommendations that Labor, at the time, thought were appropriate, and inadequate funding that has been provided over that period of time. In addition, at the time, there was a reduction to the bottom-line budget by Labor over three consecutive years. I won't go into the level of funding. It was never put back in.

Our coalition government has focused on increasing the spend on aged care—$5 billion in the last budget. There will be a continuation, in the forward years, of our commitment to improving the outcomes for senior Australians. The royal commission was not called because the system failed. The royal commission was called to address the structural flaws that exist within the aged-care sector. The commentary around the loss of funding is to do with inappropriate behaviour by providers against the budget that was set within the budgetary processes. Labor's continued claims were refuted by Fact Check on two occasions. It made it very clear that the statements were not the truth, because the budget for aged care has continually improved, and it continues to grow.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's in black and white in your own budget statements.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister has the call.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The portfolio budget statements show the increase in budget expenditure by our government, unlike what the shadow minister says. We will take the construct and build it into a very simple process of providing the authority of the parliament to move provisionally allocated places to areas of need that are important, because, at the moment, we can't do that. This enables it. Constructing aged-care homes is a difficult, time-consuming and expensive exercise. It's not uncommon for providers to finish their aged-care homes with fewer rooms than originally intended, due to either planning or construction issues. Where this is the case, the Aged Care Act needs to be flexible enough to allow these leftover places to be moved to another suitable location.

Similarly, a provider may find a more suitable or affordable location for an aged-care home a few minutes drive away from the planning region to which the places were originally allocated. Again, the act needs to be flexible enough to allow this. The amendments within this bill add to the flexibility to act by allowing provisionally allocated residential aged-care places to be moved from one region to another where a provider can demonstrate that the movement is in the interests of aged-care consumers, that there is a clear need for places in the new region and that it is not detrimental to the region to which the provisionally allocated places are currently allocated. This change is in the best interests of all older Australians and the broader community. It will remove a potential barrier to the community accessing residential aged care, thereby aligning with the government's commitment to ensuring delivery of high-quality aged-care services when and where they're needed. I thank the members and senators for their contributions to the debate on this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.