Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Cowper on the Mid North Coast, I have the privilege of representing over 47,000 constituents over the age of 65. That's more than a third of Cowper voters that may be eligible for a home-care package either now or sometime down the track. But, since Labor's changes to aged care and more specifically home care came into effect last November, there's been a tsunami of increasingly desperate calls, emails and visits to my office from many of these constituents who have been negatively and directly affected. There have been stories of greatly reduced services despite unchanged or even deteriorating physical conditions, stories of waitlists for palliative care that failed to be delivered prior to the death of the package holder in need, stories of a complete lack of eligible providers of certain services or more remote and isolated areas with no access at all.

It's not just individuals crying out for help; it's actually the service providers who tell me they've never seen conditions like this before for their clients. Ben Kleeman, a passionate home care specialist at UPA Aged Care Solutions in Port Macquarie, said:

We want to help. We have capacity. We have been through reforms before. But right now, we are disempowered from providing care. We are being told clients are ineligible for the care they need, or they have to wait 6-9 months for an assessment, and then 9-12 months for the package to be assigned: a total of 21 months from care need to funding becoming available.

Or there's Nola Turnbull from Frederickton, who is a fiercely community minded advocate and who herself is in her 80s but is currently assisting over 200 locals in navigating the system. She said to me:

Pat, I've never seen it this bad. People are desperate. They are being told they need to continue to wait for help even though they cannot cope with the most basic day to day tasks. And for those lucky ones who do have care, the charges to their packages have gone through the roof, with things like cleaning and domestic care doubling … in just six months.

Labor promised Australians at the 2022 election that no-one would be left behind in Labor's blueprint for a better future. It was a tagline that was used repeatedly—much like 'saving $275 on your electricity bill'—yet since that time we have seen a continued erosion of supports for older Australians. And it's time to admit the efficiencies introduced last year were only for those in the Canberra bubble and have left vulnerable older Australians, who deserve our care and respect, out in the cold.