Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Across my electorate, older Australians and their families are telling me the same thing: the aged-care system and the home-care package system are failing them. One of my constituents Donna Rowe reached out about her father, Richard. Richard is almost 94 and, while his family waited urgently for a needed upgrade to his home-care package, the paperwork sat idle. He is now in hospital in full-time care.

Families feel as though the system delays in the hope that frail people will die before their package is approved. That is what these constituents telling me and this is completely unacceptable. Others, like Carla Pennini, pointed the cost of bureaucracy. Her parents' provider took more than 23 per cent of their package in administration fees alone. That was the equivalent of 120 hours of care to her parents lost to paperwork. Imagine the difference those hours could have made to the people spent being looked after in homes instead of in administration.

These are not isolated complaints; I hear them all the time. They are symptoms of a system that has become too focused on providers and not focused enough on people. The government promised older Australians they would be supported to stay in their homes and these promises are not being kept.

I also want to raise another issue affecting many older Australians: the cost of treating macular degeneration. In recent weeks, several local residents have contacted me. One had just been diagnosed and described the shock of being told they would need ongoing injections directly into their eyeball to slow the disease. Another wrote of months of treatment explaining the steady financial strain it has placed on them and their partner, both of whom are on part-time pensions.

Even with Medicare rebates, patients face hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket costs each year. For pensioners on these fixed incomes, this burden quickly becomes unsustainable. These pensioners are being crushed by cost-of-living—they talk about higher energy prices—and, on top of this, macular degeneration is actually bleeding them dry. It is the leading cause of blindness in all of Australia. Around one in seven Australians over 50 shows signs of the disease. Without treatment they lose their vision, independence and quality of life. These Australians are not asking for luxuries; they're asking to help afford a treatment that allows them not to go blind, to live in dignity, to drive, to read, to stay connected to their family and sometimes stay in employment.

So I call on the Minister for Health and Aged Care to review the support and how we support Australians with macular degeneration, including whether those PBS co-payments and the safety net thresholds remain fit for purpose. On behalf of my constituents, please look at it.