Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader (Tasmania)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was in Queensland for a seniors forum with Labor's fabulous candidate for Petrie, Corinne Mulholland, and Senator Ketter. I am very excited at the thought of having Corinne join us here in Canberra. She's exactly the type of hardworking and enthusiastic advocate we need in the other place. Corinne is so passionate about her community. Her understanding of the issues facing older Australians is second to none. As part of this trip I also visited Opal Aged Care at North Lakes and Cooinda House with Senator Ketter and Corinne. Cooinda House is a state-run home and has a great story of renewal and revitalisation. It's a home that has a mix of 60 people living with dementia and mental illness. What stood out to me the most about this home is their model of person centred care and their residential aged-care ambassador. They're constantly refreshing their skills, and many of them have undertaken the dementia massive open online course through the University of Tasmania. This online course has ranked in the top 50 online courses in the world. Many of the staff have also lived a day in the life of a resident, so there's an extra understanding and empathy in the level of care provided. One of the residents we spoke to, Peter, said that a lot of small changes that have been made have made all the difference to their quality of care and the feeling of having a home. They've integrated the choice of food and catering and the sorts of outings they have with their residents, which is a really good turnaround in particular for that home.

As I mentioned, Cooinda House has a residential aged-care ambassador, Ash Lloyd, believed to be the first role of its kind. Ash's ambassadorial role was designed to provide a calming and reassuring presence in the home and to help de-escalate any potential safety concerns. The ambassador has become an integral part of the care team and is there to be a companion, a listener and a calming influence for frail and elderly residents, especially those living with dementia or mental illness. The ambassador's role is inspired by the successful work being done in other Queensland hospitals and in Canada, where ambassadors provide interventions and de-escalate possible incidents in emergency departments. Staff and residents both told me that having Ash as the ambassador has resulted in better safety and reduced anxiety in the home, and having spoken to him and heard his commitment to and passion for the job that he has, I am reassured that the role is a great asset to that home. I love seeing the new innovation and the thinking outside the box when it comes to aged care, and I congratulate all the staff and also the residents for their involvement in turning this home around.

There are enormous opportunities in the aged-care sector, but we need a government and a minister who will give the portfolio the attention it needs and value the care that older Australians deserve. This brings me to the issue of the Home Care Packages waitlist—an ongoing issue that those opposite just don't seem to be able to curb. After years of cuts, after billions of dollars being cut from the aged-care sector, anything that this government touches when it comes to aged care turns to stone. In the last few months, after pressure from us on this side and others in the community, what they've tried to do is too little too late. Every time those opposite are questioned about the increasing Home Care Packages waitlist, their defences go up and they start talking about interim lower-level packages or other options for interim care that are available to those waiting for Home Care Packages.

For the past two years I've stressed that these interim measures of care just aren't adequate and that the government wasn't doing enough. A new report released last week by Leading Age Services Australia, LASA, has reinforced the Morrison government's sheer incompetence and mismanagement of this issue. The report shows that older Australians who are on interim aged-care packages often die or end up in residential facilities before getting their appropriate care. According to this report, almost one in four people died while waiting on an interim package, and almost 43 per cent entered residential care while in the queue. This is not a report commissioned by the opposition; this is a report by LASA, Leading Age Services Australia. The report also highlighted that people are waiting up to 12 months longer for their package than government figures suggest. This is, frankly, not acceptable. It's deplorable, and those opposite should be ashamed. The Home Care Packages issue has been so poorly managed, it's not funny.

A case in point: a 97-year-old woman in my home state of Tasmania recently had funding for her level 4 package cut off. When her provider inquired as to why this had happened, they were told that she had died—she was listed in the system as 'deceased'. This was most certainly not the case. This poor woman was still very much alive. This is a 97-year-old woman who lives alone and requires the highest level of care available. For some unfathomable and unacceptable reason, she was marked as deceased and removed completely from the My Aged Care system. There was no reason for this woman to be assumed to have died—no reason at all.

This was one case that was brought to our attention. How many mishaps have happened while this government has been so incompetent in managing the aged-care sector? This situation has since been resolved, but I wonder just how often errors of this extreme extent are occurring under this incompetent government. I've been contacted about instances of families being sent letters saying their mother's or father's home care package is available after they've died. Can you imagine how distressing this must be for these families?

I have spoken time and time again in this place about the seriousness of the crisis in the aged-care sector. This government and the Liberal coalition have been in power for six years. We've had three ministers, and you have to say there's something about consistency, because all three of them have failed older Australians. They have failed each and every one of them. This isn't just what I or other people on this side of the chamber have observed; it's what they have finally realised themselves, which is why they called the royal commission into aged care. They've called it because they have failed older Australians, and they should be ashamed.

It's just inconceivable that in a country as rich as Australia, where we have known for some decades about the ageing of our population, they are so ill prepared and unable to administer the rollout of home care packages and to address the crisis that's facing this sector. They throw their hands up in the air, whether you're talking about home care packages or whether you talk about the crisis in the workforce. It's just unbelievable. There are 128,000 older Australians who are still waiting for their home care packages, and there has been absolutely no relief whatsoever in the budget that was just handed down tonight. The biggest con that this government has tried to do is to camouflage and reannounce the 10,000 home care packages that it announced last week or the week before. What a disgrace.

Well, older Australians have had enough. Australians are fed up with this government. It's time that we had a government that is serious about looking after older Australians. We need a minister in the cabinet room. We need a minister that's going to have the audacity to stand up to Treasury and to Finance in the future and provide the funding that is needed for aged care. Older Australians deserve better. When, like the current government, you don't even have a minister in cabinet, that's never going to happen. Bill Shorten has already committed to having ageing in cabinet, so the minister for ageing and aged care into the future, if we're fortunate enough to win the next election, will be a cabinet minister. Australians are ready for it. They're ready to get rid of this government, and I say: bring the election on.