Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Travelling around my electorate of Ballarat, I can see the incredible work that our older generations carry out throughout our communities. After a lifetime of work, it is often the older generations who run RSLs, sporting clubs, fire brigades and so many other community organisations across my community. After retiring from working life, they keep giving back to our community day after day. But, once they get that little bit frailer and they find themselves in need of care, too often they're taken for granted. There is so much we need to talk about in this place, and today I want to specifically focus on what's happening in aged care.

The government is in the process of privatising the gateway to home care: the community aged-care packages. Aged-care assessment teams provide a really important gateway for older Australians into the home care they need. In my home state of Victoria, assessments are largely undertaken by not-for-profit agencies or health worker agencies, social workers, nurses and occupational therapists who have been doing this job for a very long period of time. I've had experience of the great work they do with my own parents; my mother has since passed away. The work that they did enabled my parents to stay in their home and have quite a good quality of life for a long period of time.

While old age isn't synonymous with aged care, it will be a reality for many. For those who want to receive the care they need at home, a home care package is a necessity. We know that there are more than 100,000 Australians stuck on waiting lists for home care. In just two years, nearly 30,000 older Australians died waiting for their home care package.

In my own community of Ballarat, I hear of far too many who are stuck waiting for the help they need. I know of one couple consisting of an older man dealing with dementia like symptoms. He was left waiting for urgent care on a seemingly endless waiting list. So long was the wait for services that his condition worsened and he had to enter residential care. He wanted to be cared for at home and he could've been cared for at home, but unfortunately he was unable to continue to wait because his condition had deteriorated. His wife, who has worked as his dedicated and loving carer for so many years, is now herself stuck on the waiting list for home care.

Other older residents in Ballarat might just need help with their gardening and cleaning, but at the moment there are no services available in Ballarat. The only advice that has been given to some is to keep endlessly calling the helpline, hoping that one day the funding will be provided to them. Frankly, it isn't good enough. When we in this place reach our older years, we would all hope that the care we need is accessible and that, where possible, we can access it in our own homes. All sides of this place need to come together to ensure that we provide that to all Australians. (Time expired)