I rise today to speak on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which Parliament House and the surrounding areas stand, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and the traditional owners of the land I'm so proud to represent, the Bidjigal people, the community that Barton spreads across. I pay my respects to elders past and present and to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who call my part of Sydney home.

This bill does a number of things. It makes technical and minor amendments to keep the Aged Care Act 2024 running smoothly. It removes the elected members of local government from the definition of responsible persons under the act, bringing their treatment into line with how we already treat elected members of state and territory governments. It also locks in on a permanent footing the system modification rules that have kept the sector steady since the act commenced. All of that matters, and I will come to that a bit later on.

The core of this particular bill and the part that really made me want to speak on this piece of legislation is the establishment of a permanent, independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner. I want to spend a bit of time talking about that. I think it's easy, particularly in this place, to let a change like this pass and not give it the attention it rightfully deserves.

This reform delivers on one of the central recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. That royal commission heard, in painful and specific detail, that older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been navigating an aged-care system that was really never built with them in mind. It's a system with rules, forms and assessment processes designed around a Western urban English-speaking default—a default that leaves out people caring for elders on country, people whose families and communities carry the caring load in ways this building sometimes forgets to count. The introduction of a permanent commissioner has been developed in consultation with older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, communities and leadership. It attracts overwhelming support and it is something that this parliament must implement.

Between 2011 and 2021, the number of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 65 years and over almost doubled. Over the next decade, the number is expected to increase by another 67 per cent. Therefore, the passage of this reform is not only urgent but also absolutely central to making sure that the system serves our Indigenous elders.

We know that older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are far less likely than the general population to access aged care services relative to need. We know they often reach out for support later, when their needs are more acute, because the system in front of them has not felt safe, familiar or theirs. We know that cultural safety is not a nice-to-have, tethered to the edges of some care plan. It is the difference between an elder feeling seen and an elder disengaging altogether.

That is what this commissioner is for: not some committee, not some working group, but a standing independent statutory position sitting within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, whose job it is to keep advocating for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people long after this debate concludes here.

The commissioner will set strategy and give direction to the system governor. They will maintain direct, ongoing partnership with community and with the sector; not a once-off consultation, but a genuine, continuing relationship. They will assess and benchmark culturally safe training so that 'cultural safety' stops being an expression in a policy document and starts being measurable with a standard providers are held to. They will support provider registration and build the workforce programs we need on the ground. They will gather and hold the data and evidence this country has never properly collected on ageing and aged care for First Nations people because, for too long, decisions have been made about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ageing without the evidence to back it.

I think about the hard work that the inaugural Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner, Andrea Kelly, did in her 2½ years in the role as she travelled over 70,000 kilometres across the country to visit different types of Indigenous communities, meeting more than a thousand people by doing so. In her own words:

Many people invited me into their homes and workplaces and shared stories of what mattered to them: family, community, connection to Country and culture.

So what does this mean for the electorate of Barton? Barton is not a remote electorate. We don't have the vast distances or challenges that some of my colleagues across the parliament speak about. I want to be honest about that rather than borrowing someone else's story. But Barton is home to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and elders—in Hurstville, in Kogarah, in Rockdale, in Carlton—and their experience of ageing and aged care is shaped by the same gap this bill is trying to close.

Urban invisibility is its own kind of barrier. When people picture the need for culturally safe aged care, they often picture remote communities, and rightfully so, but they don't always picture a Koori elder in Kogarah trying to get an aged care assessor to understand why family, not paperwork, is how care decisions get made. They don't picture a Torres Strait Islander grandmother in Hurstville, whose extended family provides most of her everyday support in a system that still measures care mostly by what a provider bills for.

Local Aboriginal community organisations across the St George and Canterbury region—and services under the Minister for Social Services, the member for Sydney—do extraordinary work holding these gaps together in my community. Honestly, they are stretched quite thinly, and often underfunded for cultural work they end up doing anyway because someone really has to do it. A permanent commissioner backed by a mandate to build workforce capacity and benchmark cultural safety training gives organisations like these something they have not reliably had before. This is a direct line into the system, a system that is finally required to listen back.

From a personal perspective, members of this place might know that, before I came into parliament, I spent over a decade as an employment industrial relations lawyer representing both workers and employers in a variety of sectors. I spent time in the court system advocating for people navigating systems that were not built with them in mind, sometimes. I say that because I recognise that pattern in this bill. Good systems fail people, not usually through malice or intention but through design and defaults that quietly assume everyone looks the same, speaks the same and organises their family and their care in the same way. We are seeing the aged-care version of it here. The fix is the same in both cases. You fix it by putting a permanent, resourced and independent role inside the system with real authority to hold the rest of the system to account. This is exactly what this bill does.

To break it down, schedule 1 establishes the statutory office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, with the function and powers to strengthen the provision of culturally safe and equitable aged care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In turn, the amendments construct an effective and responsive office by making sure that the office is independent and enshrined in statute so that it can strongly advocate for culturally safe, trauma-aware and responsive aged-care services. It also establishes distinct functions to drive systemic improvements to aged-care systems, enables the independent advice, oversight and accountability to the system governor and provides for an annual work plan and reporting mechanism. Finally, it also enables the commissioner to access capacity-building and educational functions of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to support culturally safe and responsive care as a separate, functionally independent office. All of this is to make sure that the office can become a long-lasting and successful institution within our aged-care system, benefiting those that need care now and into the future.

I'll briefly go to the other measures in the bill, particularly removing the elected members of local government from the definition of 'responsible persons' under the act, which responds directly to advocacy from local councils and their respective peak bodies. It removes a disincentive that was quietly deterring local governments that support aged-care services from staying in the aged-care space at all. I want to be clear about what this change does not do. Non-elected local government officials who are actually involved in delivering aged-care services remain squarely within the scope of this 'reasonable persons' definition. This is not watering down of oversight. It is keeping full accountability where the actual service delivery decisions are made.

The bill also makes permanent the sunsetting system modification rules made under the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025. Anyone who has worked through a major legislative transition knows that sunsetting provisions can create uncertainty for a sector trying to plan for the future, and locking these modifications in permanently gives providers, workers and older Australians that legal certainty they need without the cloud of that expiry hanging over those arrangements that are already working. Finally, the bill makes a series of technical and minor amendments identified earlier in the operations of the Aged Care Act 2024—the kind of tidying that does not make headlines. It's not sexy stuff. But it keeps a major reform aligned with its policy intent and with the IT systems that older Australians and providers actually have to use day to day.

At the centre of this is the promise the royal commission asked us to keep—that older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would have a permanent, independent voice inside the aged-care system, not just mentioned in some founding piece of legislation. It says to those elders of the electorate of Barton, who have spent a lifetime building community, often without the recognition they deserve along the way: 'Your experience will no longer sit at the margins of these systems. Your knowledge, your culture and your right to age with dignity will be built into the way aged care is really governed here in Australia.'

Before I end, I also want to acknowledge that this bill will be supported by the coalition, which was so well explained by the member for Berowra. I'm pleased that such an important reform for our aged-care sector and for Indigenous Australians will receive the full-hearted support of the two major parties in this House.

For communities across the Riverina, the electorate I proudly serve, aged care is not some sort of conceptual debate. It affects every family in Wagga Wagga and every town and village. Older residents across this country, particularly in regional areas, shouldn't be disadvantaged simply because there isn't the availability or access to aged care. I heard the member for Barton talking about her own electorate. She mentioned Hurstville and other areas—St George—and, yes, I agree that this is an urban issue as well; one that affects people in metropolitan Australia. But, certainly, when it comes to regional and especially remote Australia, aged care is so important.

I've just finished giving a speech in the House of Representatives about access and availability to childcare services, and what we're discussing in the Federation Chamber is the other end of the spectrum. Riverina families are already facing workforce shortages, long waiting times and limited service availability in the aged-care sector. It compounds when you have a childcare sector that those issues are prevalent in as well. Any changes to the aged-care system must make life easier, not more difficult.

The Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026, as the member for Barton has just said, has the support of the major parties. I'll be interested to see where a particular party that is polling well at the moment goes with this bill. Who would know? Who, quite frankly, would know? But we support, as the coalition—as Liberals and Nationals—an aged-care system that delivers efficiency, fairness and dignity.

The establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner is a step towards ensuring culturally appropriate aged-care services on country and in some of Australia's most far-flung places. I was in the Northern Territory last week talking with veterans; moreover, listening to them. I've been right around the country doing just that but particularly in the Northern Territory. I will say, Deputy Speaker Lawrence, given you are the member for Hasluck and I have the member for O'Connor here as well, in Western Australia, they're such big places. If you're in Kalgoorlie or, dare I say, Tennant Creek or Katherine or Alice Springs, access and availability to aged care is so important and, certainly, having the right provisions for our Indigenous Australians is also so very crucial.

I know the former member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, used to say a lot that he represented more Aborigines than he did farmers in his sprawling western New South Wales electorate. When you have places such as Wilcannia and elsewhere, like Narrabri, you need to have good aged-care services. The same goes for Riverina. Not that long ago, I was very pleased to have an aged-care forum there, at which there was input from my local Indigenous people.

Certainly, when it comes to aged care, I was most impressed with the advocacy by John Knight and Ross Tout from Uralba at Gundagai. I know the Whiddon group has been especially forward-leaning in its advocacy for better aged-care services in Temora and have received government grants under both the coalition and Labor governments, and I welcome those. But people in country Australia shouldn't be left waiting, certainly not indefinitely, for decisions that affect their care and their quality of life. Accountability has to remain at the heart and the centre of the aged-care system.

This bill has a number of facets to it. Schedule 1 establishes the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and this gives effect to recommendation 49 of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and responds to the interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner's consultation report.

For schedule 2, under system modification rules, part 1 of the bill amends the act, and part 2 amends the Aged Care Rules 2025. These amendments cover matters such as: reinstating home-support priority categories where uptake periods are missed; enabling payment of provider subsidies where a provider cannot claim through regular channels; aligning the timing of the individual contribution rate variations in line with decisions made under other Commonwealth laws and legislation; introducing a formal notice process before a provider report; changing triggers for a review of someone's asset determination, and that is really, really vital; and mandating providers' reporting of refundable deposits and accommodation contribution balances.

Schedule 3 is technical by nature. It contains 13 further machinery amendments, including definitions of such things as direct-care staff member and responsible persons. I do note that one aspect of the royal commission into aged care, certainly when it comes to responsible persons and those people who are in and around aged—only anecdotally—was that volunteers should always be welcomed into aged-care centres. I appreciate that these days you can't just take a volunteer's home baking and serve it up to the clients. They have to know what's in it—the nutrients, ingredients and everything else. But our volunteers, certainly in country areas, have provided such wonderful service over so many years. Indeed, the aged-care centres themselves are often run by community volunteers working in an incorporated, not-for-profit group, and it is difficult to make ends meet.

One of the provisions and the findings of the aged-care royal commission was 24/7 registered nursing. Now, you take an aged-care centre at a town such as Junee. It's only 42 kilometres from Wagga Wagga. It's a big country city, the largest inland city in regional New South Wales. They found it so difficult to find registered nurses, because they had fewer than 20 clients, but to have around-the-clock RNs for 20 clients, you just about needed five-to-seven full-timers to cover maternity leave, holidays, sick leave and all the rest. And that did eat into the profits and the financial capabilities of these country aged-care centres, which do an amazing and wonderful job. I know the aged-care centre at Harden-Murrumburrah was forced to close for awhile and send its clients elsewhere—it might have been only 100 or so kilometres away to other nearby centres such as Young. It's less than 100 kilometres to Young, but often our country centres in New South Wales are 100 kilometres apart. The moment that you that you take those people who have been in aged-care centres and ship them off, for want of a better word, to places 100 or so kilometres away, they lose the familiar faces. They lose the day-to-day links with their loved ones. It really is not a good thing.

So we do need to provide better and more services for our older Australians. I do note that we have and certainly did have around the time of the budget 48,000 older Australians stuck on a triage waiting list. Now, many vulnerable older Australians waiting up to a year, if not longer, to receive home-care packages. I know that in my office this is one of the most pressing and emotional things. Even in the weight of the number of calls that comes in to my electorate office in Wagga Wagga, families are worried about accessing home-care packages. I have to say a new report by the government was quietly released on the same day as the budget this year. Now that's unfortunate. The timing was terrible. Often you will find governments will do this. They bring out these reports when it just gets subsumed and taken up by the bigger issue of the day, such as the budget. We know that one of the upcoming RBA decisions will come out on Melbourne Cup Day, and that's always the way. It's the first Tuesday in November, but it just seems to get lost in the process. The timing is sometimes terrible. In the order of governments, it's sometimes it's sometimes desirable. But people looking for residential aged-care placements, according to this report, can expect to wait even longer—even over 12 months for those placements.

The report triggered a complete wave of criticism from advocates for older Australians—and that should be all of us, quite frankly. People argued that lengthy waits could worsen existing conditions. And this does go against everything that the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommended. Now, I know that, at the time, the shadow minister for aged care, Senator Anne Ruston from South Australia, who I've got a lot of time for, said the government had tried to bury the report and made the point that it was 'quietly dumping the data in the middle of budget lock-up, hoping Australians wouldn't notice'. Well, Australians did notice, unfortunately for the Minister for Health and Ageing. It probably seemed oblivious to him, but what Senator Ruston did add was that Labor's approach to the waitlist crisis was built on tragedy. Sadly, it has been tragic. It truly has. Without new packages, the only way the waitlist will come down is by banking on older Australians either moving into residential care or dying. Tragically, 5,000 have already died waiting, she said, and that is so sad. When you add the Indigenous component to that, it just adds to what I would say is a crisis.

And so having a commissioner, having this bill and having the contents therein are important, and I welcome the member for Lingiari. In my contribution about child care, I referred to her electorate and I referred to her advocacy because she represents many Indigenous communities and they do need the very best support from this place. Canberra is a long, long way from the Northern Territory, and, indeed, sometimes the policies that this place brings about as legislation are a long way removed from my electorate, which happens these days to wrap right around Canberra. But aged care, and Indigenous aged care particularly, is of critical importance because there are greater challenges within our Aboriginal communities—within the Wiradjuri community and other communities that I represent. Whether it's Ngunnawal, Ngambri, Wiradjuri or whatever Aboriginal nation, we certainly need to make sure that we provide the support and the provisions to enable older Indigenous Australians to have aged care of as good a quality as that of anyone else. If this legislation can do that, then that is very, very good.

I note that this does have a time constraint on it—that being the end of October. I note that, according to the papers, the bill has no financial impact. That is well and good. Certainly, though, we do need to do better in the aged care space, and the minister certainly needs to take heed of that.

I understand the member for Pearce would like to present a copy of their speech for incorporation into Hansard, in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 6 November 2025.

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Every older Australian deserves care that sees them, knows them and treats them with dignity and respect. That is a simple principle, but it is not a simple task, because dignity in care is not 'one size fits all'. It is personal. It is shaped by culture, by history, by family and by community. And for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, dignity in care must also mean something more. It must mean care that understands culture, care that acknowledges history, and care that recognises and responds to the adversity that so many have faced across generations.

Today, this parliament takes an important step toward delivering that kind of care. This bill, the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026, establishes Australia's first permanent, independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner—a reform that was called for by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, and one that this Albanese Labor government is proud to deliver.

The case for this role is not abstract. It is grounded in evidence, in experience and in the voices of older First Nations people themselves. We know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are more likely to need aged care, and more likely to need it earlier in life. Yet, despite that greater need, they access aged-care services at lower rates than other Australians. That gap should concern every one of us in this chamber, because it tells us something fundamental is not working. And we cannot shy away from why.

For too many older First Nations Australians, aged care has felt like a system built by others, for others—a system that has not always understood them and has not always welcomed them. It has been a system that, at times, has asked people to leave their country, to move away from their communities, to be separated from family and to navigate services in languages and environments that are unfamiliar and unwelcoming. For some, engaging with aged care means placing trust in institutions that, historically, have not earned that trust.

We cannot ignore that history. It shapes decisions today. It shapes whether people seek care early or delay until it is too late. It shapes whether people engage or whether they disengage entirely. And when people disengage from care, the consequences are serious. They wait longer, they become sicker and too often, they miss out on the dignity, the comfort and the quality of life that every Australian deserves in their later years. That is why this reform matters.

While we acknowledge that there is still much work to do to rebuild trust—trust that has been eroded over decades and, indeed, centuries—this commissioner represents a profound step forward. It is about creating the structures that ensure every older Australian, no matter where they live or who they are, has access to safe, respectful and culturally appropriate care.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner will be a strong, independent advocate. They will work to ensure that aged-care services in every part of our nation—in our cities, in regional communities, in remote areas and on islands—are culturally safe, trauma informed and responsive to the people they serve. They will provide expert advice to government on how to improve access to care and how to design policies and programs in genuine partnership with First Nations communities. They will help to build cultural capability across the aged-care sector so that those delivering care understand the people they are caring for not just clinically but culturally and socially as well. They will support more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to become registered aged-care providers, because we know that care delivered by community in community is often the care that works best. And they will play a role in growing the First Nations aged-care workforce so that older people can see themselves reflected in those who support and care for them.

Importantly, this commissioner will not be a symbolic role. They will sit within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, with an independent statutory function. This is a deliberate design—one that ensures the commissioner's voice is not only heard but is connected directly to the mechanisms that can drive change. It means their advocacy will have impact.

The commissioner will have the ability to collect information, to listen to communities and to report publicly on what they hear. They will have a direct line into how aged-care providers are registered, how quality is monitored and enforced and how care is delivered on the ground. And they will be able to engage directly with the minister and with the broader governance of the aged-care system, ensuring that the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not just included but embedded in decision-making.

This role has not been developed in isolation. It has been shaped by the voices of the people it is designed to serve. The outgoing Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner, Ms Andrea Kelly, has done extraordinary work in laying the foundation for this reform. Andrea travelled extensively across the country, holding 135 forums and meeting with more than 1,000 older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, along with their families, communities and service providers. She listened deeply and respectfully to what was working, what was not and what people wanted from this role.

That consultation has been critical, because meaningful reform cannot be imposed from the top down. It must be informed by lived experience, by community insight and by genuine engagement. In my own visits to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community groups, I have also heard about the impact of having a dedicated voice—someone who can take local experiences and bring them directly into the national conversation. That is what this commissioner will do.

Of course, appointing a commissioner is not, on its own, the end of the journey. There is still significant work ahead. We must continue to ensure that aged care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is not only culturally safe in principle but culturally safe in practice every day, in every service, across the country.

This Albanese Labor government has already begun that work. We have enshrined stronger rights within the Aged Care Act. We have ensured that redress payments are appropriately protected. We are continuing to support and expand programs such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program. But we know there is more to do, and we will continue that work—alongside communities, alongside providers, and with the guidance of the commissioner—until every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person can have confidence that aged care is a system they can trust.

While the establishment of the commissioner is at the heart of this bill, it is not the only measure it contains. The bill also introduces a number of important technical amendments to strengthen the aged-care system as a whole. These include making permanent a set of measures that have supported the smooth operation of the new Aged Care Act since its commencement on 1 November 2025. Those measures have provided continuity and certainty for both older Australians and providers during a period of significant reform, and it is appropriate that they now be embedded in legislation.

The bill also strengthens protections for older people by clarifying the obligation on providers to refund any contributions or fees that have been overcharged or overpaid. This is a practical but important safeguard, one that reinforces accountability and fairness within the system.

It also addresses an unintended consequence in the current legislation by ensuring that elected local councillors are no longer captured as 'responsible persons' under the act. This change brings local government into alignment with state and territory arrangements, and it ensures that councils can continue delivering aged-care services in the communities that rely on them.

Further technical amendments will support the ongoing transition of the sector, including a small but meaningful change that provides individuals with greater flexibility in how they pay for residential aged care while awaiting the outcome of means testing.

These are sensible, targeted improvements. They reflect a government that is committed not only to major reform but also to ensuring that the system works in practice for the people who rely on it every day.

But at its core, this bill is about something much simpler, and much more important. It is about voice. It is about ensuring that older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are not just participants in the aged-care system but active.

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026. We will not be opposing this bill. It contains sensible measures, and one of them, the establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner, is something that we support. But I'm not going to pretend this bill fixes aged care. It does not.

For an electorate like Grey, the gap between what this bill does and what older people actually need is the difference between someone getting the care they need or not. The establishment of a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner responds to a recommendation by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. I support that. Older Aboriginal Australians have specific needs, histories and barriers to care, and they deserve a system built to respond to that.

Beyond that, this bill is a technical clean-up. It legislates a series of interim arrangements, which the government has been running under Henry VIII powers, that are due to sunset in October this year, plus a further 13 technical amendments covering contributions, means assessments, refundable deposits, payment methods, reviews and recovery of overpayments. None of that is controversial, but the House should sit with what it tells us. The new Aged Care Act commenced in November of last year, less than 12 months ago. Already the government is back here asking parliament to fix it, and that is not a good sign. It tells us that this act was rushed through, patched together with executive powers, and now it is being stitched into permanent legislation because the alternative is to admit that it wasn't ready in the first place. Labor promised a simpler and fairer aged-care system. What providers and older Australians in my electorate are actually seeing is a system that keeps needing legislative surgery less than a year after it was started. That's not simpler. That's not fairer.

Now, I want to bring this back to Grey, because this is where the theory of aged-care reform meets the reality of an ageing population spread across 92.3 per cent of the state of South Australia. I want to talk about Aboriginal Community Services. For years, Aboriginal Community Services managed in-home aged care for Aboriginal people across almost the entire footprint of Grey, right up through Hawker and Leigh Creek and further north, to as far as Oodnadatta. This was the biggest Aboriginal in-home care provider operating in the region. It closed its regional operations. It handed the case load over to another organisation that, by all accounts, cannot properly service that footprint. Aboriginal Community Services still operates in Adelaide, in the city. It no longer operates in the regions it was built to serve. Why did that happen? Because the cost was too much. The funding model did not reflect the real cost of delivering appropriate care across enormous distances. There is no workforce for these roles. There is no funding to build one. The staff who are willing to work for less than industry standard rates are often not properly trained or properly skilled for the job.

So what's left? In Port Lincoln, the Port Lincoln Aboriginal Health Service says it offers in-home care but has no staff to deliver it. In Ceduna, there is a handful of beds run by the state government. In Port Augusta. Wami Kata Old Folks Home is left carrying almost everyone, including older people who cannot go home—not because of their physical health but because of overcrowding, drugs, violence and unsafe conditions in the home they'd be returning to.

This is the practical, on-the-ground reality behind the government's decision to establish the First Nations Aged Care Commissioner. I support that commissioner, but an office in Canberra does not put a trained carer in a car and send them to Oodnadatta. We need a funding model that actually reflects the cost of delivering aged care across regional and remote South Australia. Otherwise, this commissioner will spend their time documenting a collapse that policy failure allowed to happen. What is needed is a workforce strategy and a funding model built for remote and regional delivery, not a metropolitan model stretched thin over thousands of kilometres.

The reality on the ground is worse than an administrative failure. I was in the APY Lands last week with shadow Indigenous affairs minister Julian Leeser. There is no functioning aged care left. The APY Lands is nearly double the size of Tasmania, with many communities, and there's only one aged-care centre. It's in Mimili. Older people are dying at home without support because there are no services able to reach them. One elderly woman's bed was found dumped at the local tip, discarded by a system that had already given up on her. That is what happens when a government spends more time legislating structures than getting a carer, a nurse or a working service into a remote community.

This neglect is not confined to just the APY Lands. Stansbury, Whyalla, Port Augusta and numerous other towns that I could name are all facing serious aged-care shortages of their own. Across the entire country, we are 100,000 FTE short in this sector. It is simply not good enough—not enough packages, not enough staff and not enough beds.

The electorate of Grey is not alone in this. This is what happens when a national system is designed without regional and remote Australia in mind. I want to give the House three examples from constituents. Their stories show exactly why this bill is not enough. Neil in Kadina is 83 years old. He has lived with motor neurone disease for 20 years. He lives alone, with no family nearby. He was approved for a level 4 home-care package back in 2018. He was recently reassessed in the hope of moving to a level 8 Support at Home package given how much his condition has deteriorated. The outcome of that assessment was that he will stay on the same funding he was allocated eight years ago. Funding set in 2018 is apparently being treated as adequate for a man whose condition has progressively worsened for two decades.

Colin in Moonta is 99 years old. He has a level 2 home-care package and has been assessed and approved for a level 7 Support at Home package. Colin has mobility issues, a severe hearing impairment, misses his medication and can't prepare his own meals. He has been hospitalised three times in the past nine months and burgled twice in the past six. His home needs significant modification to be safe for him. He's been approved for the care he needs. He now faces up to a 12-month wait for that funding to actually become available. Colin is 99 years old. There is a very real chance he will not live to see the funding he has already been approved for.

Jacoba in Whyalla is 82 years old. She lives alone with no family in the area. She has mobility issues, diabetes, Crohn's disease, a vision impairment and uses a guide dog. She also has depression, a history of breast cancer and needs help with tasks like showering and dressing. She holds a level 4 home-care package but has been assessed as needing a level 8. She has been through three reviews—no increase in funding. She often can't afford transport to a medical appointments and has to miss them. Recently she went through a full week in pain because she couldn't get a ride to the doctor. Her package covers half an hour of help morning and at night and cleaning and shopping only if there's enough money left in that fortnight.

That is what this bill leaves untouched. It does not fix the integrated assessment tool, which remains algorithm driven with no human override. This is despite mounting concern from the former inspector-general of aged care, providers across the country and families living this every single day. It does not clear the national priority wait list, where more than 100,000 older Australians are waiting for a Support at Home package and another 100,000 are still waiting to be assessed. Wait times are blowing out to 10 months. It does not resolve the uncertainty over the Commonwealth Home Support Program. Providers in Grey are withdrawing over unclear future funding.

These programs are meant to leave no-one worse off. Well, I can give you multiple examples from my electorate. People with continuous glucose monitors that got that funding through the CHSP package now no longer have that funding. It does not build a single new residential aged-care bed at a time when Australia needs 10,500 new beds a year just to keep pace. Only 802 were built last financial year. It's a big gap. And it does nothing for the more than 3,000 older Australians stuck in public hospital beds for want of an aged-care bed or a home-care package. This number went up 30 per cent in just five months, costing taxpayers well over $1 billion a year.

I support this bill. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commission is generally a good step, and the technical amendments are sensible. But older Australians in Grey should not mistake this for the government fixing aged care. Neil, Colin and Jacoba don't need another office or another clause in the rules. They need an assessment system with a human being in the loop. They need funding that matches the care they've already been approved for. And they need it now, not in 12 months. Aged care should be built around the person, not the process. Behind every assessment outcome, every review, every funding decision, there is an older Australian who has already done everything asked of them. They've applied. They've been assessed, in some cases assessed over three times, and they are still waiting. That is not a technical problem. That is a government that has lost sight of what this system is for. I'll vote for this bill because it does some genuine good and does no harm, but I want it on the record that passing legislative housekeeping is not the same as fixing aged care. Until Neil gets a package that matches his needs today, not his needs in 2018, until Colin gets the funding before his 12 month wait outlasts him, until Jacoba isn't left in pain because she can't afford a taxi to the doctor, this government has not fixed anything. This parliament will keep coming back here to patch a system that was never ready in the first place until real change is made.

I rise today to speak about this important piece of legislation. Does the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026 fix all of the problems we have in aged care? No, it doesn't. But it does go some way, and it is testament to our government's commitment to our First Nation communities. It also recognises the contribution our old people have made to this country.

The aged-care system, as a key part of our national fabric, is also critical. Hundreds of thousands of families and individuals rely on this system to help them care for our old people. This system is not always perfect. My view is that, as a country and as a community, we do enough to look after our elders. Part of this is a stressed system which can at times be complicated to navigate.

Another key part of this is that the role of families in looking after our old people is under immense pressure. It is too simplistic to say that people just don't care about our elders. I don't believe that that is the case. The trouble is that all of our households have huge amounts to contend with: you need to work, you need to shop, you need to cook and clean. If you have children, you have double the workload, adding child care, school drop-offs, sports and bedtime routines. Our families nowadays have limited space and time to properly care for our elders. This is not an abdication of responsibility. Sometimes you just have to make the time, but it is a recognition of the fact that life is busy and difficult.

As our older population has grown and families' capacity to care for people full-time has decreased, over the last decade we've had to create an aged-care system that is extensive, accessible and high quality. As I said, this aged-care system is now a critical and essential piece of our social fabric. It is something we all rely on and something that most of us need to start focusing on as we start getting older. But access to aged care is not always universal. Some people find it easier to access aged care than others. Wealth, remoteness, language barriers and family support are all factors in the ease by which someone can navigate the aged-care system. We cannot avoid the fact that another factor in access to aged care is your race—specifically your Aboriginality. As of 2024, there were 197,000 people in residential aged care. Of this number, only 2,300 were Aboriginal, which constitutes 1.2 per cent. These statistics are obviously nuanced. First Nations people have a much lower life expectancy. We will die almost eight years younger than the average Australian. Of course this means fewer of us in residential aged care.

In the Northern Territory and in my electorate of Lingiari, remoteness certainly plays a factor in low numbers of people in residential aged care. I recognise also that we are a small part of the population. We are also more likely to be looked after by our families. Yet there is no doubt that there are structural barriers for First Nations people that exist. We are far less likely to access aged-care services than non-Aboriginal people. This is what this piece of legislation seeks to address. It is about creating a more inclusive and accessible aged-care system for First Nations people. The creation of the statutory Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will be an important focus point for culturally safe care. This cultural safety is critical. In an era of hyperpoliticisation around culture and wokeism, what people forget is that tailored care for people of different backgrounds is a basic right.

I know how hard our aged-care staff work. They do all they can to help people and keep them comfortable in their old age. Yet many staff may not be aware of different cultural protocols that relate to caring for First Nations old people. This is not their fault, but it is the obligation of the whole sector to get informed. Part of this cultural safety is that there are some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who carry significant trauma. When I think of our old people, I know there are many survivors and descendants of survivors of the stolen generation. The care they need looks different to the care others might receive—and it needs to.

I recently met with the Healing Foundation to talk about their work in this space and the growing stories of trauma relating to the stolen generation, which is unfinished business for this parliament. As I said in my first speech, it is this institution, the Commonwealth of Australia, which sanctioned the removal of children from their families. Our obligation to act to redress this trauma is unavoidable. The Healing Foundation presented to me the From sorry to action report, a comprehensive road map on works that this government and this parliament must undertake. One of these works is culturally safe and informed aged care, which I am pleased to see us moving on. Next year we will gather to pay tribute to the survivors of the stolen generation, and I hope that we can all see substantial action.

I recognise the work of the interim First Nations aged-care commissioner, Andrea Kelly. She has undertaken comprehensive and wide-ranging consultations to help inform this legislation. It helps that Andrea is a local Arrernte woman from Central Australia. This permanence of this statutory office is an important step. The other, more technical amendments to the Aged Care Act enshrined in this legislation are also very important in making sure there is broader reform to how First Nations people access aged care.

In my electorate of Lingiari, there are many aged-care centres who do incredible work under the most difficult circumstances and conditions. In Maningrida, 38 Mala'la staff in the aged-care team work every day to look after our old people. The 10-bed residential aged-care service makes sure people have access to the 24-hour care they need, and, also, that it is an environment that is safe and comfortable. Having the Maningrida facility means that people get to remain close to their families; they don't have to move to Darwin. They are close to their country, and if they choose to die on country they are there in Maningrida; that is important. We know that removal of these old people away from their country impacts on their health and their wellbeing. Delivering aged care anywhere in the country is difficult work, but doing it in such a remote community like Maningrida, Wadeye, Galiwinku, Ramingining—right throughout my electorate, I see remote communities and all the difficulties they are facing in terms of workforce but also looking after old people.

In 2025, then minister for aged care Anika Wells and I announced an additional $12.8 million in funding for the Maningrida facility. This was the first time in nearly 15 years that that aged-care facility was given any upgrades or funding to try and look at putting in an additional four rooms, kitchen facilities, an upgraded laundry and storage areas and outdoor improvements, including extensions to shaded areas and new sensory dementia gardens. We are seeing dementia increasing, particularly in some of our remote communities and amongst our old elders. This facility is beautiful and is exactly the type of place that our remote communities deserve.

Another aged-care facility doing great work is over in Nhulunbuy, East Arnhem. 'Yutjuwala Djiwarr' means 'little heaven', and this facility is exactly that. It is a culturally designed and locally informed facility which seamlessly fits the landscape. I visited this facility two weeks ago as well as the Purple House dialysis unit, which is co-located on the site. Our old people have given so much to our communities and our country, and they deserve to be cared and looked after with respect.

I am eager to work with the new office of the commissioner on how we can further improve remote aged care. We have come a long way under this government, but I believe we still have more to do. I thank Minister Rae for his work on this legislation as well as his commitment to First Nations aged care. For so many families in the bush and in my electorate, knowing that their old people can have access to safe and high-quality care is a great relief. The aged-care system is by no means perfect. When I look at the aged-care facilities in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek or Katherine, they're still a long way from being perfect. I've started having pop-ups and going there on a regular basis to sit down with the old people and also their families to get feedback on the level of care that they are receiving in those aged-care systems, and it is far from perfect.

We do need to look after our elders because, as I said earlier in my speech, we are all heading down that road. We're all getting older, so we want to make sure that the system can look after us. By the time I decide to go into that system, I want to make sure that the system is going to be fixed. Our old people, our elders, deserve nothing more. They do deserve our full attention, and we must continue working to strengthen it, to make it fairer, to make it more accessible and to make sure that, regardless of your cultural background, you're looked after.

Nearly 30 per cent of the population of Alice Springs is made up of the multicultural community. These are people who have come from overseas and have made Alice Springs their home. I've sat there and shared tears with them. When I look at what I'd expect my mum and dad's level of care to, if they were alive, I think that this should be the standard. Even for the multicultural community whose voices often aren't heard amongst people, we need to make sure that they're looked after and that we give them the care, the love and the support that we expect our old people in the remote communities are to go through. So, as I keep saying to them, I don't care what their backgrounds are. I think that they deserve to be looked after and they should be looked after.

When Minister Rae brought this legislation forward and we started talking about the reforms that we're doing—I have to give a plug to Natasha McCormack, a young First Nations lady from Alice Springs who was on the ministerial council advising the minister in terms of aged care going forward for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I think she's doing a fantastic job working with Purple House both with aged care and also with old people that are accessing dialysis, because a lot of our old people are on dialysis treatment, and making sure that level of care is holistic and that they're getting the treatment, the support and the care that they all deserve. I commend this bill to the chamber.

I rise to commend the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026, which establishes Australia's first permanent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner. In 2021, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommended a statutory role within the aged-care system dedicated to fostering and promoting culturally safe aged-care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. An Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner was appointed in December 2023. Five years on from the royal commission's final report, it's pleasing to see a permanent independent statutory commissioner finally being legislated by this place.

Older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are more likely to need aged care and more likely to need it earlier in life than other Australians, but they access the system at much lower rates. For too many, aged care has felt like a system built by others for others, a system which asks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to leave community and country, to explain themselves in an unfamiliar language and to trust institutions that have, over generations, given their families very little reason for trust.

A strong, independent commissioner based within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is important. It's critical that we have independent oversight of the system that delivers services to some of Australia's most vulnerable people. But independent oversight is only as valuable as the government's willingness to act on what it sees and hears. We've already seen independent statutory office holders elsewhere in the aged-care system raise serious and credible concerns which continue to go unanswered. I don't want to see the office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner established only to have its findings and suggestions ignored and its authority quietly hollowed out as we've seen elsewhere in the aged-care system.

Nowhere is that more obvious than with aged care's new algorithm. Two of Australia's inspectors-general of aged care have raised serious concerns about the Integrated Assessment Tool, but the Albanese government persists with using a tool which has been likened, repeatedly and in this place, to robo aged care.

In 2021, the royal commission recommended a 'single assessment process' to be followed by every assessor. That's a sound principle—that older Australians shouldn't have to navigate different assessment systems depending on where they live or which organisation is undertaking the aged care assessment. But the algorithm that underpins the Integrated Assessment Tool, which is a critical part of the new Single Assessment System, has become a critical concern.

The minister has repeatedly stressed that the tool involves skilled, well-trained clinicians filling out a detailed questionnaire about an older person's needs. It's true that skilled and well-trained clinicians are filling out those questionnaires, and I have no concerns about their abilities and competence, but not all of the data that those clinicians collect informs the IAT's result. The minister has consistently failed to confront its most egregious flaw: clinicians can't override the algorithm's final funding outcome even when their knowledge, their experience and their judgement tells them that that result is wrong.

Ian Yates, the former acting Inspector-General of Aged Care, said it plainly; this system is 'not what was recommended by the Royal Commission.' Natalie Siegel-Brown, who served as inspector-general until recently, raised the same alarm while she was in the role. She's recently pointed out that Australians are dropping out of the aged care system because 'it's a maze for them and it's too hard to access care or even an assessment.' She said that older Australians are experiencing huge delays in obtaining assessments, and she's reported that she's heard of 'instances where people have sought an assessment through the Single Assessment System, had their assessments halved when they were seeking more care and subsequently died the day before they finally were able to get a reassessment.' She noted that giving people less support and care than they were assessed as needing just meant that they returned later needing more care—and more expensive care.

The inspectors general are not alone in expressing concerns about the IAT. Assessors, providers, older Australians and even the Commonwealth Ombudsman have all expressed their grave concerns about this tool. My office in Kooyong has heard repeatedly from constituents who believe that their needs have been badly under-assessed. Last month, ABC's Four Corners broadcasted confronting testimony from families across the country describing the same experience—an assessment process that leaves older people, vulnerable Australians, without the care that they clearly need.

For the benefit of the House, this is how the tool works: when an older Australian receives an assessment, they sit with a qualified, skilled assessor who asks them more than 500 questions, including more than 100 free-text boxes in which those assessors record important details about the person's life. Professor Kathy Eagar, who is an expert in algorithms, has identified significant issues with this process. Although the tool includes more than 500 questions, the vast majority of responses are not assessed by or included in the algorithm. That includes the more than 100 free-text boxes. That's where the detail is, and the devil is always in the detail when it comes to providing health care. From there, the algorithm determines the older person's functional score based on their ability to perform daily activities, like showering, preparing meals and getting around. It also determines their 'needs met' score, which is based on whether their need to complete those tasks is being met fully, partially or not at all. Finally, the algorithm determines compounding factors like frailty, mental health problems and cognitive issues.

I asked the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors about how the algorithm weighs the functional score, the 'needs met' score and the compounding factors in producing a final funding outcome in a written question I sent to him on 23 March this year. I asked that question in good faith, seeking to understand a complex issue. But, rather than providing a detailed and respectful response, the minister's answer contained a one-sentence response, referring me to the 736-page Aged Care Rules, which do not include that detail. His response was evasive. It was inadequate. Professor Eagar further alleges that crucial questions about cognition, frailty and other health conditions are being asked too late in the algorithm's decision tree to have an impact on outcomes and that the weighting of decisions can produce significant differences in funding based on only one or two questions out of those more than 500. The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors says that the tool is about getting more equitable, fairer outcomes for older people. But applying a consistently wrong and inappropriate algorithm to clinical inputs is neither equitable nor fair. When Australians want those decisions reviewed, the algorithm, the flawed algorithm, is again tasked with performing that review.

Former inspector-general Siegel Brown conceded the issues with this process when she said, 'Why would the second result from the algorithm be any different from the first, unless you're manipulating what you put in?' We're seeing that in the outcomes that this tool is producing. Many older Australians without adequate support are being inappropriately and prematurely pushed into residential aged care much sooner than they need to be there. For a local Kooyong community member Graham Crossan, that was the only option that the minister advised, despite his ability and his desire to remain at home with more support. Consider this: in the tool's first months of operation, close to one in five people, almost 20 per cent, who formally contested their result received a higher level of funding once a human being was actually able to review the decision. If a computer is getting it wrong that often, it's not a rounding error; it's the system failing people that it exists to serve.

Now, in place of an override function, in the face of overwhelming pushback from communities like the one that I represent, the government has promised a new escalation option so that people in extenuating circumstances can request that their outcome be changed. The government announced this change would be supported by a rapid review into the IAT, which the minister promised would be delivered within three months. That three-month mark passed last week, and my team has reached out to Minister Rae's office for an update on his 'rapid' review. But we've been told that the review hasn't yet landed with his office, and we have no eyes on legislation which would enact the promised escalation option. I'm calling on the minister to bring that legislation forward to this house as a matter of urgency. The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors says:

… we'll make whatever changes are necessary to get the best outcomes for older people.

Well, there is an immediate fix on the table: restore human oversight.

There's also a majority in the Senate ready to pass government drafted changes. The crossbench, coalition and Greens are united in supporting this. There are Labor backbenchers who are demanding that this issue be fixed. There are peak organisations, two former aged-care inspectors-general and thousands of older Australians who need and want urgent remediation. We need the minister to act with urgency to restore expert clinical oversight over use of the Integrated Assessment Tool.

In the transition to the new aged-care system, the government's response to the 2024 Aged Care Taskforce was to provide older Australians with a 'no worse off' guarantee. But we are seeing that older Australians are worse off under this new aged-care system. The guarantee was meant as a safeguard when Support at Home replaced home-care packages—a guarantee that people already receiving or approved for care before that cut-off date would not pay more for their care than they did under the old system. The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, in correspondence with my office on 27 May 2026, confirmed, however, that the no-worse-off guarantee applies only to out-of-pocket costs for grandfathered participants. It doesn't guarantee the same quantity of services and it doesn't guarantee the same type of services for grandfathered aged-care recipients. So quantity and quality of care for older, vulnerable Australians have now been relegated to a function of price. And because prices have risen, that funding is now buying fewer hours of care. This has compounded the effects of the algorithm.

Older people's needs are being underassessed and their funding is too low. Older Australians are worse off in many respects. I would hate to see the office of the First Nations Aged Care Commissioner established in the expectation and the hope and with the promise that it will give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a stronger voice in the aged-care system only for that voice to be ignored when it raises difficult concerns—the sorts of concerns that statutory aged-care office holders have already raised in the context of the integrated assessment tool.

So, while I commend this bill to the House, and while I hope that it delivers on its promise, I cannot commend the government's continuing and flagrant disregard of independent advice and the provision of best practice care in the aged-care sector.

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill. It's a very important bill. How we care for our elders says a great deal about who we are as a nation. In years to come, we'll be judged by how we've looked after our elderly people—the people who have basically built the foundations of this nation for us to prosper and to live the lives that we do.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, elders hold a particularly special and sacred place. Many of them, as we heard when the member for Lingiari spoke earlier, have gone through traumas. Many of them are a part of the stolen generations. You can imagine what they have been through in their lives, so the least that we could offer is peace of mind in their twilight years. And that's what this bill is all about. It's about ensuring that people who have gone through so much and whose communities are in some the remotest parts of Australia, some of the most socioeconomically downtrodden areas, could have a huge impact on their lives when they need either an aged-care facility or when they need home care.

You can just imagine someone in Central Australia getting to a point in their lives where they require care and they're bundled up and sent off, perhaps, to Adelaide, as is the case in many cases. They've left their community, their entire families, the way of life they have known for their entire life to go into this completely different set-up with alien culture, language and everything. It would be one of the most traumatic experiences for an elderly person that I can think of. That's why this bill is so important. The legislation before us today is so important because every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deserves to age with dignity, with respect and with access to care that understands and values who they are.

For many First Nation elders, quality of life is inseparable from culture, identity and belonging. And yet, for too long, too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have experienced an aged-care system that was not always designed for them. I'm certain it was not designed with Aboriginal people in mind, when you look back many years ago—that is the reality. They've been disconnected from the system. They've struggled to access the cultural environment they require in their aged care.

We heard, again, from the member for Lingiari—I keep on referring to her speech—who spoke about our multicultural communities, and it's very similar. When you reach a certain age, if English is your second language, as it is for many of our people in remote communities, it is the first thing that you start to forget. Those language skills get less and less. You can imagine being in a place where you can't communicate, in a culture that's completely different from everything that you've known and where you're not adequately understood. That must change, and it is changing, and I'm very pleased to see that it is, but it must change for our First Nations people and for our multicultural communities as well.

This bill represents that important step forward. The Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026 delivers on a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. It establishes a permanent, independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. This is not merely an administrative reform. It's ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders have a dedicated and enduring voice within the aged-care system. It's a voice that can advocate directly for their needs and aspirations, a voice that can engage with the community and the sector, and a voice that can support service providers, monitor cultural safety initiatives, strengthen workforce development and ensure that aged-care services evolve in partnership with those they are intended to serve. Most importantly, it sends a clear message that the voices of First Nations elders matter, that their experiences matter and that their cultural identity must be respected at every stage of life.

The creation of this role has not just emerged in isolation. It's been informed by extensive consultation across Australia. The Interim First Nations Aged Care Commissioner engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders, their families, their communities, community controlled organisations, aged-care providers and all of the peak bodies. The message from those consultations was pretty clear: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want an aged-care system that understands them and is not imposed from above but informed by the people whose lives it affects.

Today is about more than just legislation. It's about recognising the profound contribution that First Nations elders continue to make to Australia. It's about acknowledging that cultural knowledge is a national treasure. It's about ensuring that future generations can continue to learn from those who have carried that knowledge throughout their lives. When an elder loses connection to culture, community or country, I think we all lose something, each and every one of us. But, when an elder is supported to remain connected with their community and respected and empowered, then communities are stronger, culture is preserved, and we all become stronger together. That is what this legislation seeks to achieve, and that's why it deserves the support of this House.

At its core, caring for First Nations elders is about far more than just meeting their daily care needs of diet, food, bedding et cetera. It's about ensuring that people can live their later years with dignity and purpose and a continued connection to the things that have shaped their lives. As I said earlier, you can imagine, perhaps in many cases where English is not the first language, that it would be traumatic to come from a remote community to be thrown into an aged-care facility, hundreds of miles away, that caters for no cultural differences. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they're deeply connected to their family, to their culture, to their community, to their traditions and to their country. That's why culturally safe and culturally grounded aged-care services are so essential. That is precisely why the establishment of a permanent, independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aged-care commissioner is such an important reform. I'd like to congratulate the minister, who's here in the chamber with us, for this bold move. It shows that we're taking the steps to ensure these things happen.

In my electorate of Adelaide, we already have examples of what culturally responsive aged care can achieve. In my electorate, the Aboriginal Community Services residential aged-care facility in Davoren Park, a suburb in the western suburbs, is Adelaide's only Aboriginal-specific residential aged-care home. The work undertaken there demonstrates what happens when care is built around the culture and around the needs that Aboriginal people have. Staff are trained to provide culturally sensitive and responsive care that helps reconnect elders to their heritage, to their community and to their identity.

The lifestyle programs offered there are much more than just recreational activities. They provide opportunities for elders to maintain and celebrate cultural practices that have been passed down through many generations. Residents participate in activities such as beading jewellery, sculpturing native clay animals, cooking kangaroo tail over an open fire and baking traditional damper. That is what it means to cater for someone's culture and for someone's traditions, which makes those people feel connected, as they have been most of their lives, to their communities. These activities are powerful reminders that culture does not end when a person enters an aged-care facility or requires aged-care services. Indeed, for many elders, maintaining those cultural connections become even more important than ever.

The Davoren Park facility also hosts an intergenerational playgroup that brings together the elders and young First Nations children, and they integrate. This is a beautiful example of culture and stories being shared, protected and passed on. It allows the knowledge, stories, language and tradition to flow between the generations. It ensures that elders remain respected and that they are respected teachers and leaders within their communities as they have been all their lives. It helps safeguard culture for future generations. These initiatives remind us that aged care is not only about supporting elders; it's also about protecting that cultural heritage that they carry.

Another organisation in my electorate making an incredible difference in Adelaide is the late Sister Janet Mead's Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons, which works tirelessly to support vulnerable South Australians, including many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are ageing and, for whatever reason, are homeless but still need that care. They need that care. As we get older, things change. You may have been used to doing it tough on the streets, but as you age someone has to step in and take care, and they do an incredible job. Organisations like the day centre and Aboriginal Community Services stand to benefit enormously from this bill and from the support and guidance of a dedicated First Nations aged-care commissioner.

Having a commissioner will mean that we'll have the ability to advocate for the needs and aspirations of elderly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, engage directly with the communities, support service providers and also monitor the cultural safety and workforce programs. Importantly, they'll help organisations build capacity, strengthen culturally appropriate care practices and implement workforce initiatives that better reflect communities' needs. The commissioner will serve as a bridge between communities and providers. They'll help ensure that services remain informed by lived experience and community voices. They'll strengthen that relationship between the aged-care providers and the people they exist to serve, because the best aged-care outcomes are achieved when services are built not for communities but with communities together. And that is exactly what this legislation seeks to achieve.

At the end of the day, this bill is about people. It's about the elders who have spent their lives caring for their families and strengthening their communities, many in adverse situations. Many of these people were part of the stolen generation, who are now ageing rapidly and require these facilities. It hasn't been easy for these people. Let's see if we can give them some peace of mind in their twilight years. That is what this is about.

The legislation recognises that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders are not simply recipients of care. They are custodians of culture. They are living links between past, present and future, and we, as Australians, should respect that. They are an important part of this nation, and every story they share, every language they preserve, every lesson they pass on strengthens not only their communities but our Australian shared cultural heritage. When we protect and support our elders, we protect and support that continuation of culture itself.

The establishment of this independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner sends a very powerful message. It says that First Nations' voices matter, it says that cultural safety matters and it says that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people deserve aged-care services that reflect their needs, their aspirations and their identity. The bill helps ensure that they can age with that dignity that we spoke about earlier, remain connected to the people and places they love and receive care that truly understands who they are.

Today we take an important step towards ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders are not only cared for but respected, heard, connected and celebrated for the immeasurable contribution they've made to our country. I commend the bill and, once again, congratulate the minister, who's here in the chamber with us, for this bill and for bringing it to this House.

I rise with caution and concern in support of the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026, but my support is conditional upon a broader principle of equal dignity being applied across Australia's aged-care system. I support the principle that elderly Australians deserve care and understanding of their culture, language, history, family and identity, but if this parliament is to accept that principle for one group of Australians, then we must be prepared to apply that principle more broadly. I therefore call upon this government to establish a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function for culturally and linguistically diverse Australians. This should not replace or diminish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner; it should stand alongside it.

The demographic case is compelling. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians number approximately 984,000, representing 3.8 per cent of Australia's population in the data before us. Their circumstances are distinctive. The Indigenous population is considerably younger, with a median age of approximately 24 years, compared with 39 years for non-Indigenous Australians. There are particular health, geographic, historical and cultural circumstances affecting Indigenous Australians that deserve attention. I acknowledge that and I support addressing that, but Australia has changed enormously.

By June 2025, approximately 8.8 million Australians—32 per cent of our population—were born overseas. That's almost one in three. Around 971,000 Australians were born in India, around 732,000 were born in China and almost 400,000 were born in the Philippines. Then there are the generations of Australians who came from Italy, Greece, Vietnam, Lebanon, Croatia, Serbia, Germany, the Netherlands and many other nations. These are not temporary residents of our national story; they are Australians. They built businesses. They worked our farms and our factories. They fought in our wars. They built homes and infrastructure. They staffed hospitals and raised families. They paid taxes. They helped build modern Australia. Now most of them are ageing.

That presents this parliament with a question we cannot avoid: if cultural understanding is important to the quality of aged care, and this legislation says that it is, why would that principle cease to apply because an elderly Australian happens to be born in Greece, Italy, Vietnam, China, India or the Philippines? An 85-year-old Australian Greek living with dementia may revert predominantly to speaking Greek. An elderly Italian Australian may depend heavily upon family for food, faith and family traditions. A Chinese, Vietnamese or an Indian Australian may encounter profound language or cultural barriers when entering residential aged care. Their citizenship is equal. Their dignity is equal. Their vulnerability in aged care is equal.

That is why I'm proposing a practical addition to the government's aged-care architecture: establish in statute a multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function. Give that function a clear mandate to represent culturally and linguistically diverse Australians within the aged-care system. Give it responsibility to identify systematic barriers involving language, culture and religious observation. Give it the capacity to advise government and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner. Require it to examine whether aged-care providers are meeting cultural and linguistic needs of the Australians entrusted to their care. Importantly, give elderly Australians and their families somewhere to turn to when the system does not understand them.

This is not an argument against the bill. It's an argument to complete its logic. If cultural safety is important, which it is, and if language matters, which it does, and if maintaining identity contributes to the dignity in old age, then that dignity belongs to every Australian citizen. And the need will only grow. Australia's population is changing. In the decade to 2025, the Indian population increased by more than half a million people. Chinese, Filipino and Nepalese communities have all grown substantially. Those Australians will grow old. The aged-care system we designed today must be capable of serving the Australia of 2040, 2050 and beyond.

Equally, this does not mean pretending everyone has identical needs. Different circumstances require different services, but equal citizenship requires that the government apply its fundamental principles consistently. I'm not asking the government to remove the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner. I'm asking that the government to broaden its vision in establishing the Indigenous commissioners contemplated in this bill and establish alongside that office a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy commissioner function for culturally and linguistically diverse Australians. Let both advocate for Australians whose cultural circumstances can make navigating aged care more difficult. Let both identify the failures, let both advise government and let both contribute to an aged-care system built around the individual rather than bureaucracy.

We would be very careful about creating a statutory right and representation that appears to establish different levels of recognition among Australian citizens. We can recognise particular disadvantages without creating a hierarchy of dignity. One citizenship does not mean one culture. Australia's strength is that people from hundreds of cultural backgrounds have built one nation together, and when those Australians become old, frail and dependent upon others, this parliament has an obligation to ensure the system remembers who they are.

My position on this legislation is clear. I support the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner. I call upon the government to establish in parallel a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function representing culturally and linguistically diverse Australians, not instead of but alongside. Cultural dignity should not depend on where an Australian or their ancestors were born—one standard of dignity, equal access, equal access to advocacy, equal respect of culture and an aged-care system that serves every Australian. On that basis, I support the bill.

I thank every member who has contributed to this debate. I thank all of the members for their thoughtful and respectful contributions. I'm very grateful for the support that this bill has drawn from across the chamber and the acknowledgement of the importance of the substantive role that it seeks to create. Older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians should never have to wonder whether their place in the aged-care system depends on who happens to be in government.

I'm also grateful to the many Aboriginal community controlled organisations, the providers and the peak bodies who have shared their thoughts on what this role should look like going forward, as well as those who contributed to the Senate committee's inquiry. We will continue that genuine consultation as we move towards appointment. I want to thank Andrea Kelly. Andrea was the inaugural interim First Nations aged-care commissioner, and she worked very hard to build trust with communities across Australia and helped the government to lay out a road map for the important reforms in this space. I also want to thank our new interim First Nations aged-care commissioner, Jodi Cassar, who in her first months in the role has travelled widely and spoken to many communities and providers on how we will make this role work in the interests of elders.

While the commissioner will be an invaluable resource for government to gain the insights we need to better support older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the role is not for us. It's for the woman in a remote community who has been assessed as needing care but won't accept it because taking it means leaving country. It's for the man in the suburbs who has never told a care worker what happened to his family, because nobody has ever asked in a way that made him feel culturally safe. And it's for the families who have carried the load of caring by themselves for years, because the system offered them nothing better. When this bill becomes law, those people will have someone whose job it is to speak for them and to advocate for them from inside the system. The heart of this bill is simple. Older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people deserve a louder voice in their own care, and this parliament is about to give them one.

This bill also features technical but very important components to strengthen the system that older Australians rely on every day: strengthening protections for older people on pricing, simplifying local government's role in delivering aged care across all of our communities, and other small technical amendments to keep the act operating as intended as the sector continues this fundamentally important transition. After the commencement of significant pieces of legislation like the Aged Care Act 2024, it's entirely conventional for the parliament to proceed to make minor and technical amendments to ensure that any reforms operate as they are intended. As an example, the Aged Care Act 1997, introduced by the Howard government, was amended 10 times in the first four years of its operation. This is about listening to people's experiences of the reform and experiences of the system and ensuring that they continue to deliver a better experience for every older Australian. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.