Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on an important area of concern to older Australians which was canvassed at the community affairs budget estimates, and further developments since then which have put at issue the government's lack of forthright disclosure at these hearings. While the aged-care announcements of 20 April 2012 with the headline figure of $3.7 billion over five years sounded impressive, the actual amount of new money to be spent is $577 million. The rest is as a result of means-testing and of simply cutting funding from one part of the sector and redirecting it to another. Furthermore, many of the changes will not start till 1 July 2014, so the pain will not be felt until well after the next federal election. Like all Labor's announcements, the devil is in the detail. But what is very clear is that more people will pay more for their aged care. The problem is we do not know how many of our 3.5 million older Australians will pay more or how much more they will have to pay.

One of the failures in the aged-care reform package is the missed opportunity to reduce red tape. This is something the sector has been urgently demanding. In a sector already wallowing in red tape, this package will heap on them more red tape and more bureaucracies to deal with. I have repeatedly been told that aged-care nurses spend, on average, a third of their time on paperwork; things are only going to get worse.

There are two key issues that have arisen that have caused major concern to stakeholders, especially providers—namely, the decision to rip $1.6 billion out of the ACFI, the aged-care funding instrument, over the next four years, supposedly on the spurious suggestion of rorting by the sector, for which no substantive evidence has been produced; and the decision to establish the Aged Care Funding Authority, which will dictate prices, bonds and a whole range of other measures.

So $1.6 billion will be going out, but $1.2 billion is going to be redirected to an aged-care workforce compact. Providers currently receive a conditional adjustment payment of 8.75 per cent of their subsidy to meet certain workforce obligations. Now, unless they have an enterprise bargaining agreement, they cannot access the funding under the compact. Why? They will still be doing the same things, but they will be obliged to enter into an enterprise bargaining agreement for which the default agent is the union. There are three key unions in aged care: United Voice, the ANF and—wait for it—the HSU. Call me cynical but, with HSU membership having suffered a dramatic reduction, this is in my view a backdoor deal that the government has no doubt done to get more aged-care workers to join the union, a backdoor deal that is going to help the defunct HSU.

It is clear what is happening here. There are cuts to funding in areas like personal hygiene by reclassifying residences that are high care as medium care, and it is only natural that we will see staff cuts—and staff cuts in aged-care homes mean more regimentation. As I said at estimates: is this the beginning of the toilet queues for our high-care dementia patients? With over 40 per cent of aged-care providers operating in the red and the impending carbon tax being foisted on them, providers are justifiably feeling that they have been kicked further.

This year's budget alone will see $500 million ripped out of a sector that is already suffering. It is little wonder that we are seeing headlines such as 'Minister defends cash cut for aged', 'Nursing homes face subsidy growth limit' and 'Cash curb for age care'. And this is a problem of the government's own making. None of the providers have endorsed the options that have been put on the table by the government. It is no wonder that Grant Thornton, in its latest report on the aged-care reform package, said that the industry was alarmed to learn that the government had planned this cut. Alarmed? Of course they were alarmed, because they suddenly saw it in the budget. And it goes against the targeted cuts of $50 million to go to the Living Longer, Living Better package—so $50 million out of the package and half a billion dollars out of the budget.

It is not surprising that, with all this uncertainty, a leading aged-care service survey has found that, in the last two months since the government reform announcements, over $3.5 billion in planned aged-care development projects have been shelved. With ACFI changes due to start on 1 July, the minister has been engaged, understandably, in some urgent meetings with providers and other organisations—peak bodies, financiers and consumers—with some rushed announcements being made last Thursday, the 21st. As I said, it is little wonder that they got themselves into this trouble, because this is a problem of their own creation. It is so typical of this government to make a decision without consultation. Then we have the angst, then we have the changes—only, in this case, Minister Butler has continued to impose the changes. Time will tell how many providers will be pushed to the brink, when we start seeing aged-care facilities close. It is clear that Minister Butler is making these changes administratively and thus they will not receive parliamentary scrutiny, which means that effectively the government can do what it likes.

In conclusion, I urge those peak groups that so willingly and so quickly applauded the so-called reforms to think again, to consider the detail and to not let this government get away with perpetrating yet another smoke and mirrors saga—another spin over substance exercise like we are used to seeing from this minister. He did it in mental health and he is now trying to do a repeat performance in aged care.