Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

The Aged Care Amendment (Independent Complaints Arrangements) Bill 2015 amends the Aged Care Act 1997 to reflect the 2015 budget measure to transfer the responsibility of aged care complaints from the Department of Social Services to an independent Aged Care Commissioner. From 1 January 2016 the Aged Care Commissioner will have full responsibility for the Aged Care Complaints Scheme. The measure has received sector-wide support, including from the Council on the Ageing, Leading Age Services Australia and Aged Care Services Australia. Labor certainly supports the idea of an independent complaints scheme and is pleased to take a bipartisan position on and approach to this. I like to give credit where credit is due, and in this case it is to the government.

Labor will always be a friend of the aged care services sector. We are committed to an aged care system built on the principles of respect, dignity and choice. That is why, when in government, we delivered the biggest reforms in aged care and ageing in a generation. Labor's Living Longer Living Better package provided a 10-year plan to build a better, fairer, sustainable and nationally consistent aged care system to meet the challenges of an ageing population. The measure before us today paves the way for an important change. Its importance is heightened due to a lack of leadership in rolling out Labor's Living Longer Living Better reforms. There has just been so much to complain about. There has been a long-running concern at both provider and consumer level that the complaints investigation process needed to be independent of the department. Strengthening the independence of the Aged Care Complaints Scheme is a natural progression. In 2009 a review of the then complaints investigation scheme by Professor Merrilyn Walton recommended an independent statutory authority. The review found that a body separate from the department was necessary to remove concerns about the impartiality of decisions.

As I have said, this is a progressive measure and should provide consumers with greater confidence and protection when making complaints. It should also limit unnecessary delays and duplication. But while we give it credit we also have some concerns. The concerns are in relation to how the measure will provide savings of $2.8 million over four years by simplifying the aged care complaints-handling process. Labor is concerned about where the savings are coming from. While we accept this $2.8 million in saving from efficiencies, we have concerns about whether the commissioner will have sufficient resources to handle 4,000-plus complaints each year. With so much to complain about and the massive increase in demand for aged care services over the next 30 years, complaints will no doubt keep increasing. It is vital that the Aged Care Commissioner is resourced appropriately. We certainly do not want to see the good work that they do undermined in the name of savings. While Labor supports a bipartisan approach, this needs to be more than a simple cost-saving exercise. The government has had a poor record of taking its eye off the ball since it took over in relation to aged care in Australia. I will continue to draw the eyes of the minister and the assistant minister back to aged care and I will continue, as Labor will, to keep them accountable.