Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

In particular, I want to focus my remarks this afternoon on responses from Senator Santoro in respect of the provision of residential aged care in Queensland. We all know in this place, and anyone who reads the papers knows, that Senator Santoro is a major factional player in Queensland state politics.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or used to be.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept your interjection, Senator O’Brien: he used to be. The question I have now is: which faction? The Caltabiano faction, of which I understand Senator Santoro was a major member, has reduced its number quite significantly and there has been a split in that faction. Maybe, Senator Brandis, you could make that clearer.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. This has nothing to do with any answer in question time or any question asked of the minister.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. Senator McLucas, I draw you to the taking note of answers.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not surprising, then, that he and his office have spent much of their time over the last three weeks involving themselves in the state election campaign. We know, from reading the newspapers, that his press adviser, Mr Malcolm Cole, was parachuted into the campaign in the very early days of the campaign, even inasmuch as attending joint campaign committee meetings. He stressed that this was all in his own time. I gave the minister the opportunity during question time today to clarify the involvement of Mr Cole, to explain to the chamber what he had been doing as a part of his responsibilities as press secretary to the minister or what he had in fact been doing as part of his involvement in the Queensland state election campaign. It was interesting to note that Minister Santoro completely avoided that opportunity—he did not try in any way at all to explain the involvement of his press secretary in the Liberal Party’s Queensland campaign.

We also know that, over the last week or so, we have been subjected in this place to Senator Santoro’s attempts to attack the Queensland government on the state of the health system in that state. I thought it was opportune to clarify what effect that expenditure of public resources had on the state election campaign. I have to ask: did he take the opportunity to perhaps doorknock in the electorate of Gaven? Did he send his speech to the people who live in Redcliffe? Did he ask the people of Chatsworth whether they thought it was a good contribution and whether it would in fact affect their vote? I think that, if you look at the results of those three electorates in particular—in fact, the whole state campaign—the answer is extremely clear.

I congratulate Peter Beattie and his team of ALP candidates on a strong campaign that focused on the message of fixing our health system, fixing the water supply and the other issues—but, particularly, fixing our health system. We recognise in Queensland that the problems we experience are not all of Queensland’s making. There is a doctor and nurse shortage. We know that we are dealing with changing demographics. But we also recognise the pressure that is being placed on Queensland hospitals by this government’s neglect of residential aged care in Queensland.

It is in the minister’s interest to cloud and confuse the issues surrounding the number of aged care places that are being provided, not only in Queensland but right across the nation. But the facts are these: in 1996, when Labor was last in government, for every 1,000 people in Queensland over the age of 70, there were 97 operational beds; 10 years later, in 2006, there are 86 operational residential aged care beds for every 1,000 people over 70 years old. We have lost 11 beds for the group of people who need them most—11 beds for every 1,000 people over 70 have been lost to the people of Queensland. And the government themselves lowered the target that they were attempting to achieve in 2004 from 90 beds for every 1,000 people over 70 down to 88. So they are still not even meeting their own target, even though they lowered it themselves.

The minister talked about increasing the number of places in Queensland. You basically talk in telephone numbers when you talk with Senator Santoro about the number of aged care beds, because he just lists numbers. He does not recognise that people in Australia actually understand that we are ageing in this country, as we are around the world. We are getting older. So rattling off total numbers does not actually explain anything. That is why you have to understand the application of the ratio.

The other thing we know is that there are 1,500 more Queenslanders coming into Queensland every week. A lot of those people are either requiring aged care or very close to requiring aged care. (Time expired)

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is very important at this stage to help Senator McLucas remember what the initiatives of the 2006-07 budget were. This budget invests in security and quality of care, which I know she is very passionate about, as am I. There was $8.6 million for increased spot checks of aged care homes by the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency. I must say that, during a visit to Port Hedland some three weeks ago, I visited an aged care, low-care facility, and two spot check accreditors were at the facility. I had a very interesting talk with them and the staff who worked there. The staff were delighted that they had been visited by these surveyors and the surveyors were also very happy with what they found, so I think it was a great initiative, especially for rural and regional facilities.

There is also $4.7 million over three years for a major expansion of the Community Visitors Scheme and $1.8 million to extend police checks to all volunteers participating in the scheme. Once again, with regard to my own home town of Kojonup, I must say that the Community Visitors Scheme is very welcome, as is the fact that police checks are carried out on all the volunteers. I think that all the people involved feel very happy to have their police check and that they are able to do their community service in the way they wish to.

In July 2006 the Australian government announced an additional $90.2 million package of reforms aimed at further safeguarding older people in residential aged care homes from sexual and serious physical assault, and I know that Senator McLucas has also been very concerned about this. The budget is investing in the skills of Australia’s aged care staff with $21.6 million over four years to identify and replicate best practice clinical care in aged care homes, $13.4 million in training for the community care workforce and $66 million to continue vital training programs for nurses and aged care staff. Once again, for small rural and regional facilities this is a great incentive. The budget is also investing in aged care services in the community with $19.4 million over four years to extend the viability supplement to community aged care programs in rural areas, $24.2 million for more care services in retirement villages, $20.1 million for indexing of the aged care assessment teams program and $24.2 million over five years for improved aged care assessment arrangements.

The budget meets the special needs of older Australians with $15.1 million over four years for an additional 150 aged care places under the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Strategy, $13.8 million for a national eye health initiative and continued funding of capital assistance to eligible aged care homes in rural and remote areas. Once again, this is a very valuable program. Most aged care facilities are not able to come up with the money or the funding for capital improvement, so that one is especially welcome for rural people.

To follow on, there is $134.2 million for psychogeriatric services, $23.7 million for the National Continence Management Strategy, $18.2 million extending the grace period for income testing to $23.8 million and $1.1 million for the National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre. All these initiatives go to helping all states, including Queensland, with their aged care issues. I am very interested in improved quality of aged care. The government brought in the Aged Care Act 1997, which provides for an accreditation based quality assurance system for aged care homes. As a result, aged care homes must now be accredited to receive Australian government subsidies. Accreditation assesses the performance of homes against 44 expected outcomes. (Time expired)

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on health care or aged care more broadly. What I have just heard is at least an attempt by the government to defend their record. By and large it will not wash with the electorate, but at least it was an attempt. But what we saw last week was not an attempt to defend their poor policies in this area, their poor application of how they assist in fixing some of the problems at their feet—not at the feet of the Beattie government. What we saw last week was Senator Trood asking a question of Senator Santoro about recent COAG meetings to provide more doctors. The answers went more to the political content of state elections than to the issues at hand. Senator Santoro talked about ‘rivers of gold that are squandered irresponsibly by state governments such as the outgoing Beattie Labor government’. It is no defence to then say that that is not relevant to the debate, because Santo Santoro was talking about the state government, talking up the Liberals’ chances—and, let me say, they certainly needed talking up.

On another occasion last week Senator Trood went to the same point when he asked a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing—again, Senator Santoro—about the Queensland health system. The question was not about the issues at hand but was another attempt to talk up the chances of the Liberals in Queensland. Not to be outdone, Senator Brandis also stooped to it as well. Not only did Senator Trood ask two questions but also Senator Brandis attempted to squeeze himself into the deal, and he directed a question to Santo Santoro, the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, on the same issues. He ended up by saying:

What is disgraceful in this place is that every time I get up to talk about the neglect of the Beattie Labor government when it comes to the health needs of Queenslanders, and today specifically old Queenslanders, not one Labor senator opposite stands up for the health rights and needs of Queenslanders.

That is what he said last week. Hopefully, what we will hear from him when he stands up today is where the Howard government has failed miserably to work hand in glove with the Beattie government to fix the crisis.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A crisis of the Beattie government’s creation.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ll get your turn, Senator Brandis. What the Beattie government has said is that it is back to work to fix the problems. Unlike Senator Santoro and Senator Brandis, who were preoccupied last week with attacking the Beattie government and trying to talk up the Liberals’ position, the Beattie government is now back to work on its 100-day plan to address the health and water issues in Queensland.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many days are there in eight years?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, you will get your opportunity to defend Dr Flegg this week. You will get your opportunity to argue why you provided such a miserable turnout in the Queensland election. What I could say is, despite those objections that were run last week by Senator Santoro and Senator Trood, the Queensland public did re-elect the Beattie government for a fourth term on Saturday. I quite openly congratulate Premier Beattie on this historic achievement. It has been 65 years since a Labor government has achieved a fourth term. As a Queensland Labor senator it is truly a humbling experience to find that the state party has received such an endorsement from the voting public and to see that the Labor brand name is still out there well and good, notwithstanding the attacks by Senator Brandis and Senator Trood last week on the Beattie government. This is an important issue and they should have taken it as one last week. Hopefully they will take it as an important issue this week and deal with the issues at hand, particularly the failure of the federal government in this area. But I suspect that they will go on to defend their position from last week. (Time expired)

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just heard two remarkably fatuous, graceless, inaniloquent speeches by Senator McLucas and Senator Ludwig pretending to address the issue of aged care. These two Labor senators have detained the Senate this afternoon while they pursued a political attack upon the Liberal Party in Queensland in relation to Saturday’s state election and, in Senator Ludwig’s case, a self-congratulatory spree about the historical success of Mr Beattie in winning four consecutive terms of government. We can see how interested Senator McLucas, who is meant to be the shadow minister for health, and Senator Ludwig, who is also a shadow minister in a different portfolio, are in aged care that they would waste the Senate’s time by diverting a debate about aged care into a fatuous—I am sorry, Senator Ludwig, I have succumbed to a fit of lethologica, having listened to your remarks; I cannot remember what I was about to say, I am so taken aback by you—tedious rant about the Liberal Party and its internal affairs and self-congratulatory statements about the success of the Beattie government. That is all they are concerned with.

Let me put the facts on the table; let me put those facts into context. The aged care sector, as Senator McLucas as the shadow minister above all people should realise, is a sector of growing importance to all Australians, including Queenslanders. With respect to residents of aged care facilities, there are medical, psychological, behavioural, dental, hormonal, emotional and gerontological issues—the whole range of issues that afflict people as they move into the twilight years of their lives are presented for these institutions to deal with. But what have we heard from the Labor Party? No concern whatever to come to grips with that range of important issues.

Let me tell you what the Howard government has done in relation to the aged care sector. What it has done is what the sector has demanded: increased the number of places. That is what has happened. Senator McLucas implausibly, bizarrely accused Senator Santoro of, to use her words, ‘talking in telephone numbers’ because he was always talking in statistics. I would be interested to know, Senator McLucas, how it would be possible, without descending into a fit of echolalia, to convey changes in statistical aggregates without explaining those in terms of numbers. Of course Senator Santoro is talking in terms of numbers—big numbers—because he is quoting the figures, putting on the public record, the increase in the provision being made for people in aged care homes.

Let me remind you that the number of Australian government subsidised aged care places continues to increase. The ratio has been increased from 100 operational places to 108 operational places for every 1,000 people aged over 70, and double the proportion of places are offered in the community so that more older Australians can receive care in their own homes for as long as possible. While you, Senator McLucas and you, Senator Ludwig, divert this serious debate, which is of importance not only for older Australians but also for their families, into a tawdry political rant and an exercise in self-congratulation about the political success of the Australian Labor Party in Queensland, the Howard government has, in fact, been getting on with the job of increasing the aged care places. The best your shadow spokesman can do is ridicule the minister for talking in telephone numbers because the number of places is a large number. (Time expired)

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This whole argument has degenerated into a very shabby attack on people who have genuine concerns about aged care in this community. I challenge the senators on the other side to attend some of the Senate estimates processes where senators from this side across the board, with some support generally from some of the people from the government as well, look painstakingly at the specific issues of aged care services in our community. If any of the senators who have been involved in this discussion from the government would care to go back and look at the questions that were asked of the minister today, they would see we were asking specifically about aged care services, about the number of beds that are available. In this case we were asking about Queensland, but the figures could be extended across the whole country. In my question to the minister, I asked specifically about bed opportunities for Queenslanders and the minister got up and had a go. I am not even going to attempt to define some of the terms that Senator Brandis just used because I am not sure how you spell them, let alone how you say them. I asked about aged care beds that were currently available under the government’s proposals in the Logan River area. I also asked about the south coast area. These are people, Minister. We are not talking about numbers that can be read out. We are talking about opportunities for people to have effective aged care in their communities.

The current situation using these figures indicates that, under the ratio and formula that the government has introduced through media releases across the country over the last few months—and we celebrated the introduction of this increase in availability of beds—the numbers of beds are at a low in the Logan River Valley area. In the suburbs of Woodridge, Logan, Waterford, Albert, Springwood, Beaudesert, Gaven, Redland, Capalaba—a lot of those suburbs had the chance to vote in Queensland and made their obvious awareness of their conditions of service known at the ballot box—there was a negative result of over 300 on the government’s own expected figures of ratios of beds available. But even that looks pretty good in comparison with the south coast in the areas of Currumbin, Burleigh and Robina, which we know have an ageing population, where the demand for effective aged care is very high. It is not a new demand; it is a demand that everybody has known about for many years. In that area, under the government’s determined ratio of bed availability, the government is falling short by almost 600 beds.

That is not an argument just about numbers. The minister got up today and read off a whole range of figures which we have heard before when we have asked questions about what is happening with aged care. We have read the media releases that the minister puts out about budget initiatives. We have heard Senator Adams, again, talk about the range of initiatives that were brought in at the last budget. We are waiting to see them happen. We are waiting to see those services put in place. The members of the community have an expectation because they have been told by the government about the services that they are going to receive. The government have created an expectation. We are asking: where is the result? We do not want to get into some shabby discussion about election results. I think a few people have to take ownership for the way questions have been asked, and the responses made, in the weeks leading up to the state election in Queensland.

The minister today made two comments that I was particularly interested in. Amongst all the figures—and I have taken note of those as well—the minister in one response made these two statements: that Queensland has received ‘more than its fair share’ under the budget initiatives that he has ministerial responsibility for, and that ‘Queensland has got what it deserves to get under the formulas’. I am interested to see whether we are going to get what we deserve to get under the formula or more than our fair share, but I would hope that the people, particularly in the areas of Logan River Valley and the south coast, would be able to expect that they will have access to beds for their aged relatives and for those of them who need it. We will not degenerate to the kind of shabby discussion that we have heard today and also in the process. We need direct answers to questions, not meaningless rhetoric.

Question agreed to.