Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians (Senator Colbeck) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to COVID-19 and aged care.

We had the minister talking as if, just because other countries had had outbreaks of COVID in residential aged care, it was inevitable that it would happen here. It wasn't inevitable, and it shouldn't have been inevitable that it happen here if we had a system that was set up to actually function properly. The fact is that we have had 35 reports over the last 40 years—nearly one report a year—into the failures in aged care and how it should be fixed. Despite the minister saying, 'The other countries are worse,' the fact is that, according to the royal commission into aged care—the very royal commission that this government called—Australia has one of the highest rates in the world of residential aged-care deaths as a proportion of deaths from COVID-19. That is quite shocking. That is quite shocking to the families that have lost loved ones in residential aged care during this pandemic.

For years and years, people who know what they're talking about have been calling for reform in aged care and, in particular, for significant investment of resources. Today we saw that Professor Pollaers has said that we need an investment of at least $3.5 billion into residential aged care. And what we heard from the minister in answer to my questions was that we've got to wait for the royal commission. The fact is that these things are happening right now. We have insufficient workforce right now. We have insufficient practices right now. We are not seeing clinical care addressed. Just last year I tabled in this place the Community Affairs References Committee report into aged care, which had a particular focus on clinical care and which highlighted the problems with clinical care being provided in residential aged-care facilities. I maintain that, if we had started addressing those clinical care issues, that's one of the things that we wouldn't need to address so much now, because we would have those things in place and could have dealt with infectious disease control.

We are still not providing all workers in residential aged care with, and we are still seeing that not all workers have completed, the most up-to-date infectious disease control. How can this be happening in this country? Why haven't we been investing the money in our workforce that so many reports have so clearly shown that we need to invest? We need to significantly invest in our aged-care workforce so that we're providing the level of care—four hours and 18 minutes per day—that it is recommended that we provide. Why aren't we doing that urgently across this country, so that we don't see the tragedy that has been unfolding in Victoria happen anywhere else?

Heaven forbid there should be an outbreak of COVID somewhere else. Unless we are making sure that every residential aged-care facility has actually been audited, we cannot assure the Australian public that people living in residential aged care are safe. What did the our regulator of aged care, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, do? They sent out a form for self-assessment by these residences, and people out there may now be shocked to learn that most of those residential facilities said, 'Yes, we're prepared.' Those in Victoria said, 'Yes, we are prepared,' and yet look at the tragedy we are seeing unfold in Victoria. It shows very clearly that we need a much more heavy-handed approach—and I hate to say it, but we do—to the regulation of aged care in this country.

We need to beef up our Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. At the moment, they only have an additional 13 staff. That is nowhere near enough to deal with the issues that we need to be dealing with. This country expected that our residential aged-care facilities would keep people's loved ones safe—would keep our older Australians safe—but they have failed enormously. What we are seeing in Victoria could roll out anywhere else in the country unless we step up our workforce in all residential aged-care facilities and we make sure all our workers are supported—that they don't have to go begging for additional support. These things are urgent. They can't wait until the royal commission reports. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.