Senate debates

Thursday, 4 February 2021

Bills

Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Serious Incident Response Scheme and Other Measures) Bill 2020; Second Reading

1:11 pm

Photo of Rex PatrickRex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Serious Incident Response Scheme and Other Measures) Bill 2020. Firstly, I'll say that, having listened to a number of speakers before me, I probably don't need to go through all the issues associated with aged care in Australia at the moment, other than to say that it's not in a satisfactory state. Senator Walsh has summarised a number of the issues at hand. The government has been slow in responding to the needs in aged-care facilities.

I might say that sometimes fixes come down to money, so I will raise perhaps my favourite pet issue with the government as I speak on this bill. And I say this as a former submariner, probably the keenest person in the parliament in relation to our submarine capability. I note that the government entered into the future submarine program with a view that the project would cost $50 billion outturned. We know that from evidence before the FADT estimates committee back in 2015. The number is now $89 billion. That's $39,000 million in blowout cost. That equates, over the period of the program—38 years—to $2.8 million per day. So, Australians are paying $2.8 million per day not for the submarines but for the blowout associated with that particular program.

We need to start thinking about what we could do with $2.8 million per day in the aged-care sector. I'm all for defence. But defence money must be spent wisely, and that particular program is in significant trouble, and unfortunately it's having an effect on money that could be spent on other, more-worthy projects, other than waste and blowout. We need to take aged care seriously. We need to fund it properly. I think this bill goes some way to remedying difficulties and problems that we have in the aged-care sector, and for that reason I will be supporting the bill.

I do, however, want to speak on a couple of the amendments that I will move in the committee stage, and I'm doing that now because I note that I was a little bit late in circulating these amendments. I did that yesterday. The first set of amendments that I've circulated relate to staffing ratio disclosure. Senator Walsh mentioned issues of staff ratios. She mentioned issues associated with people having to spread across a couple of jobs. Look, I understand that proprietors of these aged-care facilities can't run at a loss. They've got to provide care, and if they're a private enterprise there would be purpose in making some profit. In what is effectively a market, not all of the information about the product being offered is being disclosed to those who are using the product. People don't know how many staff are employed by a facility. They don't know what the qualifications of those staff members are, and they have a right to know that. It's part of the offering and it's part of the choice-making process. There are some that want to impose patient-to-staff ratios or resident-to-staff ratios, and I understand that there are difficulties associated with that.

This is a step that I think this parliament can accept in that doesn't impose a cost; it simply requires facilities to declare how many staff they have, what the qualifications of those staff members are and what sort of roles they fulfil within the facility. That information can be published and then people can make a choice about whether they want their father, mother or relative to go to a particular facility based on a comparison between three or four facilities in the area, the total costs and what sort of capabilities the aged-care facility has. That's the nature of the first amendment that I will be asking the Senate to support.

There's a second amendment that I've circulated that relates to CCTV in aged-care facilities. I know that when you talk about CCTV in an aged-care facility people immediately get alarmed and think about privacy. I just want to explain the model that is proposed in my amendment. The model is proposed on the basis of the awful events and situations like we had at Oakden in South Australia in 2016 and like we have had just in the last couple of weeks. There have been some problems in South Australia, in Whyalla and Adelaide, in relation to some aged-care facilities.

Putting CCTV cameras into the rooms of aged-care recipients, of residents, in an opt-in manner—so it is not forced upon residents—would allow for remote monitoring. That remote monitoring would not be done by a relative but would be done by professionals. Professional aged-care people would monitor offsite for a few things. Firstly, they would be able to look and see if someone in the aged-care facility had fallen out of bed or tripped over and they're on the floor. They would be able to immediately alert the facility—who won't have a person in every room—that there is a medical problem or an issue in one of the rooms in their facility. That means they can respond more quickly and we won't have residents left on the floor of an aged-care facility and people missing the fact that there's a problem.

The second thing that CCTV can allow for is the recording of activities. There are lots of people that get quite suspicious—and they do it on the basis they care about their mum or their dad—about what's happening or they are not satisfied with the care that is being provided. The CCTV footage could be subpoenaed or referred to police or the aged-care commissioner and could be used to deal with any incidents, or alleged incidents, associated with abuse or poor care. I put it to the chamber that, perhaps more importantly, if staff are aware that there are cameras around, those who perform the services well will be quite comfortable with that but anyone who wants to do something that is untoward will be deterred by the fact that there are cameras installed. These cameras would be installed but only monitored in circumstances where the resident approves that monitoring—or, indeed, where someone with power of attorney approves that monitoring. I ask the chamber to give that some careful consideration.

I will point out that this amendment has been drawn from a bill that is before the South Australian parliament. The South Australian government is actually conducting a trial in relation to this. I think they've botched the trial; it should have been concluded by now. Nonetheless they are conducting a trial, and it is funded by the federal government; the federal government threw in $500,000. So there is some acceptance that this is a useful tool that could assist in raising the standards of aged care and dealing with incidents that might be occurring in aged-care facilities.

I advise the chamber that after I circulated the amendment some concerns were raised that there was a provision for the installation of a camera in common areas. I have been asked to remove that, because there may be people in common areas who don't approve of being recorded. I've now circulated a revised amendment that removes the bit about common area cameras, because I accept that some people may view that as a bridge too far, particularly at this point in time.

The hope is that we get support for this. I think it would be a measure that adds to the quality of care, simply by having professionals monitoring and recording in real-time what is happening in terms of care. I think it is helpful in that it will deal with real-time incidents where there is not 100 per cent monitoring by carers of patients in rooms; it might simply be that there is an incident occurring somewhere else in the facility, that it might be a well-staffed aged-care facility but people are attending to another incident in the facility. It's nice to have a second pair of eyes keeping watch over people.

Not only will it raise standards; I think it will also give relatives comfort as well. Relatives don't get access to the footage; who gets access to the footage would be set by the rules. There is a rule-making power in the amendment. The minister would make rules as to who would have access and under what circumstances; I would envisage that to be quite a tight set of rules. Access to footage would be limited to commissioners, to police, to courts by way of subpoena and so forth. I ask that the chamber give consideration to the two amendments that I will move during the committee stage.

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