Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister, for that comprehensive response. I think that in a lot of these debates, unfortunately, the nuance gets lost, and so does the detail. On the topic of support at home, which is really the substance, I think, of this particular debate, it was evident from the consultation that we've done over many years now—the three years of our first term and the start of this term—that Australians, resoundingly, want to spend as much time as they can at home before they have to, in some cases but not inevitably so, make a decision to enter residential aged care. We are absolutely of the opinion that we want to support that decision-making as much as possible.

What was also evident was that the current system is wholesale broken and needs to be overhauled. We all agree upon that; the coalition agrees on that, and we agree on that. But, with respect to the packages, there is a narrative forming that we are somehow holding back and that we're doing that for budgetary reasons. I really reject that. On Friday during the committee hearing, the evidence the Department of Health and Aged Care gave to us was—and I quite clearly remember this—that not all providers are ready to absorb a slush of new packages into the system.

This is important, Minister, because we heard on that day from a handful of mostly large providers—the likes of Bolton Clarke, Catholic Health Australia and so on. We did not speak to every single provider in the sector, and they're not all big. There are some medium-sized and smaller providers that provide care to communities all over this country, not only in cities but in rural and regional communities as well. This consultation has been done by our government and by the aged-care ministers, former minister Anika Wells—and I pay tribute to her—and current minister Sam Rae, and the department.

Not all providers could absorb the flood of packages if we were to release them tomorrow, but I was particularly interested in the other types of non-care provisions in the act, particularly around cleaning and gardening and why they're so important to our constituents, to older Australians. Could you please elaborate on that?