Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I understand that is a reasonable question and I am happy to provide the information that I can. As I said in my second reading speech, the change to the principles that goes to the question of missing persons is not, in any way, intended to infringe the rights of residents. The principles of residential age care are designed to encourage independence and free movement of older people. As you would know, Senator Siewert, the protection of the rights of those people, ensuring their rights of independence and movement, needs to be balanced with their protection.

So the purpose of this particular piece of legislation is to address the question of what would occur after a person was found missing. Unfortunately, there have been events where a person has been found missing and the department has not been advised that that has occurred. Why should it be a requirement that a residential age-care provider tell the department? So as to ensure the safety of other residents and that this does not lead us to further uncover inappropriate care. So the requirement that will be in the principles will be that the residential age care facility must advise the department as soon as they are concerned—in the long term—for the resident in the sense that they cannot locate them. For example, if they have contacted the police, one would expect that they would have advised the department. The reason for that is so the department can make a judgement about whether or not other residents are safe. To be frank, in most cases the person who has gone missing probably has some form of dementia, but we have to make sure, in those circumstances, that the security provisions of the facility are good enough to make sure that all the other residents are also appropriately cared for.