Basem Abdo (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering on its promise to repair the aged-care sector and deliver dignity to every older Australian?

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd firstly like to congratulate my friend, the member for Calwell, on his glorious election and thank him for his question about the Albanese government's generational reforms to aged care.

I recently had the great pleasure of visiting the Ottoman Village Aged Care facility in the member for Calwell's electorate. Aged-care homes, like Ottoman Village Aged Care, play such an important role in helping older Australians from diverse backgrounds stay connected to their culture, their language and their community. It was a pleasure to witness firsthand the warmth of care that residents receive there on a daily basis.

We're putting older Australians at the very centre of their care, building a high-quality, dignified and sustainable system for people in residential aged care, for people getting support at home and for every older person and their loved ones. We've shown in our first term that we are determined to fix the aged-care crisis, and we will see it through. I acknowledge the extraordinary work of my predecessor, the Minister for Communications, for passing the new Aged Care Act 2024 through the parliament and for kickstarting our ambitious program of reform work across the aged-care system.

Today the government introduced legislation that will pave the way for a smooth transition to the new Aged Care Act. The latest step will help prepare older Australians and their loved ones, aged-care providers and workers for the act's historic changes. This legislation continues our work and delivers 58 of the recommendations of the royal commission to create a safer and fairer system that puts older Australians at the centre of their care.

But the work to rebuild our aged-care system is already well underway. In our first term, we mandated 24/7 nursing, delivering more care minutes for older Australians. There's now a registered nurse onsite in residential aged-care homes more than 99 per cent of the time. Every single day, we're delivering an additional 6.8 million minutes of care to older Australians. But our aged-care sector would be nothing without the dedicated, passionate workers who care for the people that we love. Our government has invested $17.7 billion to increase the wages of those workers. Under Labor, registered nurses on the award working in the aged-care sector are $430 a week better off. Enrolled nurses are $370 a week better off, and personal care workers are $320 a week better off.

But, most importantly, we've improved the standard of care, giving through that every Australian the dignified care that they very much deserve. In 2022 only 38 per cent of aged-care homes had an overall star rating of four or five stars. Today, three-quarters of residential aged-care homes have that rating of four or five stars. We've got a big job ahead of us, but we owe it to every Australian to be ambitious as we deliver these once-in-a-generation reforms.