Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution on the Inspector-General of Aged Care (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023. The government's approach to this piece of legislation is symptomatic of their approach to the reform of the aged-care system since they came to government, because this piece of legislation should have been passed by now. The Inspector-General of Aged Care should have been a formal position by now, not an acting position as it currently is. It was supposed to come into force on 1 July. The bottom line with this legislation, as has been the case with so much of what Labor claims to have done since the last election, is that the reform process has effectively been delayed. It's way behind. They've kicked the can down the road a number of times, and I'll deal with that further in my presentation. Interestingly, one of the things that the Inspector-General of Aged Care will be required to do is to undertake at least two reviews of the Commonwealth's implementation of the recommendations of the royal commission, and yet their process to put this office in place itself is behind schedule. As I said, it is symptomatic of the way that the government has operated, despite its claims.

I might just respond to Senator Stewart's comments with respect to the very, very tragic circumstances of mortalities through COVID. There were 685 deaths in 2020, when we were still learning about COVID and the impacts that it might have on our communities, before we had vaccinations. In 2021 there were 231 deaths, while we were rolling out the vaccines. In our final period of government, in 2022, up to the March 2022 election, there were 1,499 deaths, tragically, as omicron took hold through the community and as the community opened up. But, in the next eight months, there were 2,652 deaths. There were more deaths under Labor—the deadliest winter of COVID ever—than there were in the 2½ years previously of the coalition. So I'm not going to be lectured by the Labor Party in respect of the management of aged care and COVID, particularly when they're demonstrating the record that they have to date.

When I think of the effort that went into keeping aged-care providers in local communities open during the pandemic, it's heartbreaking to see them falling over now due to Labor's ill-advised, politically motivated policy to bring forward 24/7 nurses, ahead of the recommendations of the royal commission. It's been over 30 providers already. The warning signs were already present in the pressures on providers like Southern Cross aged care at Bombala, which closed due to a shortage of nurses. I notice that Labor have done nothing, in the 12-plus months they've been in government, to restore that service in the Southern Highlands, despite the politics they played in the lead-up to the 2022 election. It seems quite trite to say, 'We warned you,' but we did. The department said at the time how many nurses were required. Labor played the issue hard in the lead-up to the election, demanding action, but have now fallen silent as providers across the country fall to the same problem. This time, it's of Labor's own making.

It's also preposterous that there is over $500 million in claims still outstanding for COVID outbreaks. Again, Labor made a lot of noise in the lead-up to the election, but, again, they haven't lived up to their rhetoric. Two years after the coalition presented the most comprehensive and significant funding response to a royal commission in history—at the time it was $17.7 billion, and by the election it was $19.1 billion—Labor still have not responded to a single recommendation of the royal commission. What they're effectively doing is implementing the decisions and the recommendation responses of the coalition. They want to criticise us, but, at the same time, they're implementing the recommendations and the responses to the royal commission that we tabled in May 2021, just a few months after the royal commission reported.

As I've said, tragically more senior Australians died from COVID in the first eight months of the Albanese government than in the whole 2½ years of the pandemic under the coalition, when we were still learning about the virus and before we had access to vaccines and antivirals. Outrageously, the fully vaccinated rate for senior Australians in aged care today has fallen to just 50 per cent. I recall Labor senators, in Senate inquiries and in this place, demanding to know the vaccination rate when it was in the high 80s and low 90s. Today, it's just 50 per cent. That wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that Labor, in its first budget, scrapped a program which would have provided a nurse vaccinator in every aged-care facility across the country and paid for the training and the time off. That would have facilitated speedy vaccinations not just for COVID but also for flu and perhaps for RSV when the vaccine for that becomes available. Every aged-care facility in the country would have had at least one trained nurse vaccinator. Labor scrapped that program in its first budget. That was $50 million for aged care , for nurse vaccinators across the country, taken out of the budget. And they want to lecture the coalition about aged care!

The budget announced funding for a pay rise for aged-care workers. That is very much deserved, welcome and in fact essential for the sector. Let's not forget, though, that Labor tried to delay this pay rise. After campaigning alongside the unions for an immediate 25 per cent pay increase, Labor delayed the consideration of the Fair Work Commission, then applied to delay the implementation of the policy to suit their budget. Labor's priority wasn't their promise to aged-care workers; they tried to delay their pay rise.

On the other hand, Labor do deserve credit for the additional funding to develop the IT systems to support the reform process in addition to the funding appropriations in the March coalition budget. This is a very welcome move. Quite simply, without the development and effective implementation of IT systems, the reform process will not work. The data and information to drive the reform process and improve the operation of the sector won't be available and the reform will fail.

However, a closer look at the reform of aged care after a year of Labor shows an incapacity to make decisions and a net delay to the reform process, as I have indicated and as is demonstrated by this piece of legislation that should have been passed by now. The only real action since the election has been to pass legislation effectively proposed by the coalition before the election and activate decisions that had already been made. This government is really having problems making decisions. The star-rating system reporting on food, quarterly financial reporting, the new payment system and the independent pricing authority were all well on the way before the change of government.

Before the election, Labor, without any proposed amendments of their own, opposed reforming legislation on the basis of their now defunct 24/7 nurse promise and then ran it through the parliament after the election, largely in the same form but with a few detrimental changes. The first of those was the decision to remove governance requirements for Indigenous aged-care providers. During COVID and out of the royal commission we saw that one of the most significant indicators of the quality of care came back to governance. It showed up in all types of providers. It didn't matter if they were community, faith based, private or corporate; if there was a failure of governance, quality suffered. The question now is simple: why should Indigenous Australians be subject to a lesser level of governance than anyone else? Why is it in relation to Indigenous matters that we appear to be prepared to just look the other way? It genuinely does not make sense.

Next we saw the decision to delay the implementation of registration for workforce. Clearly driven by the unions and as payback for the union campaigns before the election, this decision not only delays an important reform but also imposes additional costs on the sector and, consequently, on taxpayers. The coalition proposal was to extend the existing workforce registration system used for the NDIS into aged care. It made sense given that approximately 30 per cent of home-care providers and a similar number of residential care providers also provide services to those on the NDIS. We were picking up one system that is already there, that has already worked and that people are already registered to. One form of registration across the care sector made sense, reduced red tape and reduced cost. If there's a problem with the NDIS system, fix it. Don't create the cost, time, complexity and delay of a second system.

Labor like to count off the recommendations of the royal commission but haven't really made any decisions on any of them. Reform of the home-care system has been pushed back beyond the next election. Workforce registration has been kicked down the road, as we have discussed. Just imagine the ruckus there would have been if it had have been us that had delayed these particular decisions.

Then there's the completely baffling decision to ask the aged-care sector to decide how much of an individual's income should be contributed to their own care. This is not a decision for the aged-care sector, particularly not for aged-care providers. Their most common refrain over recent years has been, 'Things have never been better in regard to aged care; just give us more money.' Of course they are going to want more money. The department has some very valuable data to support the decision that this is a job for government, not one to be subcontracted off to aged-care providers and the aged-care sector. On what basis should the aged-care industry or aged-care providers be deciding what proportion of someone's income should get spent on the provision of care? That's a job for government. If the government can't get that process right, what hope is there for the rest of the reform process? Just get on with it.

The task of reforming the aged-care sector was always going to be difficult and take time. We proposed five pillars over five years. Labor can't afford to lose momentum and start kicking the can down the road, as they've done so far so many times, and as, as the royal commission said, has happened in previous reviews.

The net effect of Labor coming into office has been to delay the progress of much-needed reform of the aged-care sector—and I don't think any of us disagree in respect of that—basically, because they hadn't done the hard policy work before the election and now don't understand how to make the reforms after the election. Labor said they wanted to put the care back into aged care, but now they're in government we hardly hear from them. They make data hard to find. And, to be frank, you really wonder how much they do care. Simply by looking at this piece of legislation, you see: the fact that they couldn't get the Inspector-General of Aged Care legislation passed in time for it to come into place by 1 July this year demonstrates how tardy they've been.

We all agree on the importance of the recommendations of the royal commission. That's why the coalition, as I've said in my presentation, brought down the most comprehensive and significant response to a royal commission in history. We can't afford for Labor to delay the process of the reforms.