Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to take note of Senator Fifield's and Senator Johnston's answers on questions related to the government's gutting of the Dementia and Severe Behaviours Supplement, and also of the potential withdrawal of funding from the regional universities removing themselves from the regions. There are more than 330,000 Australians living with dementia, and their carers should also take note of the senators' answers here today, because they reveal the perverse priorities of this government. We have just had the senators talk about 'most in need', and one senator claimed that 26,000 dementia patients were not in need of this assistance. I ask him: if he were speaking to the families of those people, would he have the gall to say that to their faces?

This is a government determined not to care for Australians in so many ways—in this instance, not to support people with dementia or those who spend their lives caring for others but to forgo all those things for the sake of saving dollars. This government worships at the altar of the dollar. It has forgotten that taxpayers' money is supposed to serve the interests of the people. The people never figure in the responses that we get from this government. The Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Fifield, today defended his sudden decision to axe the DSBS without consultation, warning or notice to alternative aged-care providers. The Senate was treated to the usual speech: 'It has become the blame game and the government's going to be responsible.' Responsibility means looking after people. That is what this government has forgotten. It is completely disgusting to think that a government would so quickly and willingly rip support payments away from people living with dementia and severe behavioural needs and their carers—money that goes to the training and recruiting of very specialised dementia staff who provide the best care to residents with severe dementia. The minister went so far as to say that this money is not 'core funding', as though it makes it okay that it has been ripped away from these people and from the services and communities that are providing the care. It is an utterly heartless and short-sighted decision that will hurt more than 300,000 people now and many thousands more as our population ages.

We need to do more for dementia not less, as this government would have us do. The minister and his colleagues are burying their head in the sand, trying to walk away from a condition that affects so many Australians. This small payment went a long way to supporting carers for people with dementia and in managing and assisting people with severe behaviours. Sadly for Australians working with, caring for or loving people with dementia and severe behaviours, this is yet another example of Tony Abbott's cruel and unfair budget. It is hurting the most vulnerable Australians. It is always the same target. The previous Labor government did a lot of the heavy lifting in the aged-care sector to make it more sustainable and fairer for the whole community. This government that said, 'There will be no surprises,' is continuing to give us a series of nasty surprises, so often that it has almost become normal for them. I am certainly not surprised that this government has cut this important payment, because that is what it does to everything that is of value to people, the people who drive the Australian economy and need the care of this government that is abrogating its responsibility at every turn.

I want to make a few remarks in the time that is remaining to me about the disgraceful response that we got from Senator Johnston today. I come from a regional area that has benefited, like all regional areas that have acquired a university in the last 20 to 30 years. Universities like the University of Newcastle, and its outreach to the Port Macquarie campus and the Central Coast campus, have transformed satellite communities, bringing investment, research capacity, innovation and, dare I say, science into the fields of ordinary people in those regional communities. It has brought money; it has brought jobs; it has brought expertise. Right now, we are seeing the greatest existential threat to universities in this country. The University of Newcastle, the University of Tasmania, and Charles Sturt University—three that I am very passionate about and familiar with—are now under threat from this government who wants to wreck access to universities and wreck the regional economies that thrive and grow around them. This government knows no bounds to its heartlessness. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.