Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) | Link to this | Hansard source

We know Australia has a growing ageing population. We also know more Australians are choosing to age in their own home. The former minister admitted last year that he needed to intervene, but he did nothing. The next quarterly report on the number of older Australians waiting for care is due to be published soon. Given the seriousness of this issue, I hope the government does not delay the next quarter of data, as it has with past reports.

The government's track record and inaction continues when it comes to addressing the recommendations included in the dozens of reports, reviews and inquiries that have been sitting on the desks of multiple ministers. For example, more than two years ago the Australian Law Reform Commission's final elder abuse report was tabled in the parliament. Forty-three recommendations were put to government by the Law Reform Commission, the majority of which still have yet to be actioned or fully implemented. Last week it was two years since the Tune review was tabled in the parliament, an important review that gave the government a pathway forward about how to address a number of critical issues impacting on the now broken aged-care system. Thirty-eight recommendations were put to government, many of which still have yet to be fully implemented. Last week also marked a year since the then minister for aged care, Minister Ken Wyatt, announced the release of the A Matter of Care workforce strategy. It includes 14 actions to address current and future workforce challenges. How many of those 14 actions have been addressed? To date, none have been fully implemented. What a complete disgrace this is. We know there aren't enough aged-care workers now to care for older Australians let alone those that will be needed over the next decade. In less than a month it will be two years since the Carnell Paterson report into regulatory processes was handed to the government. This report has 10 recommendations, many of which have yet to be fully implemented.

The government has spent the last six years sitting idly by, asleep at the wheel, while older Australians suffer without the care they need. Reform has been ad hoc, and some issues have been poorly addressed, with many areas of concern only partially addressed. Aged care is an area of government that requires constant attention and reform, given the number of older Australians accessing services. It's clear that the Liberals continue to fail older Australians. The government failed so badly that it had to call a royal commission into aged care. At the end of October the interim report of this royal commission into aged care is set to be handed down. There's no denying that the evidence put before the commission has been confronting. It's impossible not to feel deeply concerned about the accounts made, and our thoughts go to those who have conveyed their own or their loved ones' experiences with dignity and respect.

From the evidence given, there's no walking away from the fact that our current aged-care system is not working as it should. Why is this the case? Well, not only has there been inaction by those opposite over six years; there have been funding cuts. The funding cuts have been significant—a $110 million cut to the dementia supplement in residential aged care, almost $500 million cut in the 2015 MYEFO, a $1.2 billion cut to the Aged Care Funding Instrument in the 2016-17 budget. That's almost $2 billion cut from residential aged care alone. And these failures start at the top. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the architect of the cuts to aged care that have contributed to this broken system. How can Mr Morrison be trusted to care for and support older Australians? The question the Liberals must ask themselves is: if the aged-care system isn't coping now, how will it be fit for purpose to cater for an Australian population that is ageing? For a long time, unions, the aged-care sector, consumers, families, the media and Labor have been persistent in calling for successful—that was a Freudian slip!—I mean successive Liberal governments to fix and reform the system. Vulnerable older Australians should not be waiting two years for their approved home care package. Funding for residents should not be going backwards. Why hasn't there been a focus on delivering and growing a skilled workforce to care for older Australians?

In the wake of years of inaction, the royal commission is the government's last chance saloon for real action to fix Australia's aged-care system. As I've stated, the interim report is due on 31 October. Making this interim report public is in the best interests of all Australians. The new Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, cannot and should not add this report to the dozens of other inquiries and reviews that sat idly on the former minister's desk, with hundreds of recommendations unanswered. There will be many Australians waiting in anticipation for the royal commission's interim report, and Labor looks forward to the government making it public immediately.

For a government in search of a purpose, the challenge of how we care for Australia's ageing population is an opportunity to deliver real change on a critical issue of reform. Older Australians deserve much better. The blame for the state of the aged-care system falls fairly and squarely at the feet of consecutive Liberal governments. The government's record over the past six years in relation to aged care can only be described as a bungling mess. The Liberals have never had aged care in the cabinet, and this omission is now showing.

The Prime Minister didn't have the foresight to put aged care in the cabinet after the last election, even after he called a royal commission. There has been a distinct period of funding cuts, a distressing blowout in the home care package waiting list and an admission of policy failure with the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Essentially, it's an inquiry into the government's own ineptness. The waiting list for an approved package is now at 129,000 older Australians. These are not just statistics; these are real people, vulnerable people, many of whom are frail, unwell and desperate for care. The My Aged Care portal is failing older Australians, their families and their carers. We've also seen the government delay the transition of the Commonwealth Home Support Program transition—again, the new transition date is now, goodness me, 2022.

All up, successive Liberal governments have failed to deliver reform. These are serious issues. The government has abrogated its responsibility to care for and support our most vulnerable Australians. The government's track record when it comes to aged care can only be described as a complete and utter failure. We should judge ourselves as a nation by how we treat our elderly. Older Australians deserve better, and they won't be fooled by the Prime Minister and the Liberals, who have done nothing but cut aged-care funding for years, and they've left more than 100,000 older Australians languishing, waiting for the care they need now.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (Movement of Provisionally Allocated Places) Bill 2019. This bill grants the Department of Health the ability to allow approved residential aged-care providers to move provisionally allocated residential care places from one region to another within the state or territory. Provisionally allocated residential aged-care places are residential aged-care places that have been allocated but are not yet operational. Under current practice, the Department of Health has considered applications from providers for the movement of places between regions; however, the Aged Care Act does not permit a variation of the region to which places are provisionally allocated.

This bill seeks to rectify this gap in the legislation and align it with the current practice in relation to the movement of places. The changes are required because it's reflecting more current practices about the way residential places are allocated and the way they're taken up. We have seen a lot of other reforms in the aged-care space, and there will be more to come in the future. The Australian Greens support this particular bill; however, we continue to have concerns about aged care in this country, and I think that these issues are not being adequately addressed and need to be adequately addressed. I'd just like to take this opportunity to focus on some of these issues.

The aged-care workforce is, unfortunately, still crying out for significant reform and investment. Although the

Community Affairs References Committee held an inquiry into the future of the aged-care workforce in this country and a strategy has been developed, we still don't see, a Senator Sterle just pointed out, this strategy being properly implemented. We still don't see the very important issues being addressed. We know that we're going to need around one million direct care workers by 2050 in this country. We are not doing enough to implement those recommendations and we need more urgent action to address these particular issues.

Personal care attendants now make up 70 per cent of the direct care employees in residential aged care. In contrast, the proportion of registered nurses has declined from 21 per cent in 2003 to around 15 per cent in 2016. Now, I know many people argue that aged care is not a clinical care setting. In fact, an inquiry reported just very recently about clinical care and aged care. Some aged-care providers seemed to argue that they do not provide clinical care, which is patently not true. So, at this time, there are even issues as to whether and to what degree aged-care facilities provide a level of clinical care. There are a number of issues that still need to be addressed, as was highlighted in the Senate inquiry.

Residential aged care is going to continue to evolve, given that people are living longer and they're going into aged care with much more complex care needs. We need to make sure that we have a workforce prepared for that. We're also not adequately addressing, in my opinion, dementia care. We are not providing enough—what's the right word?—encouragement for residential aged-care providers to make the changes that are needed to properly address dementia care in residential aged care. I'll come back to that in a minute, because it also relates to the continued use of physical and chemical restraints, an issue that I have some very serious concerns about.

Going back to staffing and the skills mix, the National aged care staffing and skills mix project report recommended that the amount of time for care required to prevent premature deaths and provide a safe environment for residents is four hours and 18 minutes per day, yet the national average time for care provided to aged-care residents is around two hours and 50 minutes per day. Clearly, there is a gap between the level of care that is considered optimal and what is actually provided. The research shows there is a relationship between the quality and quantity of staff and clinical outcomes for aged-care residents.

Staffing ratios can improve the quality of care, reduce unsafe work practices and lead to better outcomes for residents. There's currently no requirement for minimum staff-to-resident ratios in aged care. It is time that we looked at the research supporting staff ratios in aged-care facilities, especially around having one registered nurse rostered on 24/7. This issue needs to be addressed for the reasons that I articulated earlier. It's not just about having adequate staff numbers but also about ensuring the staff and the workforce are adequately trained, paid and qualified and that the staff actually meet the needs of the residents at the time. I appreciate that ratios can be difficult to deal with, but we need to make sure that we have the staff ratios on board to meet the particular needs of residents.

Some of the major issues facing the sector include high turnover of staff, difficulty attracting staff, undervalued jobs, casualisation of the workforce, skill gaps and lack of career progression. Aged-care workers often work in facilities experiencing chronic understaffing. In some cases this is leading to people not receiving the most basic care, thereby leading to preventable deaths. We are hearing, unfortunately, tragic outcomes of this in the current Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. We need to do a lot better and to build and maintain our aged-care workforce, particularly with an eye to the future.

I touched briefly earlier on the issue of chemical and physical restraints. A key area for reform that the sector is currently grappling with is this particular issue in aged-care facilities. It is widely acknowledged that psychotropic medications which are used to chemically restrain people are overprescribed in aged-care facilities. The data shows that 20 to 28 per cent of aged-care residents are prescribed a regular antipsychotic every day and one-quarter of residents are prescribed benzodiazepines daily. Both physical and chemical restraints are being used to manage behavioural issues. This is incredibly risky, as all sedating psychotropic drugs increase the risk of falls and pneumonia.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights is currently investigating the new government regulations on the use of physical and chemical restraints. We have great concerns that these regulations do not go far enough, and I echo the concerns of Human Rights Watch that restraints should never be used for control, punishment, retaliation or as a measure of convenience. These restraints should only ever be used as a very last resort. There is an emerging, growing body of evidence of behavioural strategies and interventions that can be used to manage the underlying causes of challenging behaviour. These include environmental measures such as improved lighting and signage, psychosocial measures such as the provision of sensory aids and appropriate sensory stimulation, a care approach such as individualised routines and increased supervision, and physiological measures such as nutrition and hydration management.

As I articulated, there's a growing body of evidence on the sorts of measures that can be taken, including cognitive behaviour management and design of facilities. I have seen a number of these. I've seen very good care which has overwhelmingly reduced the number of physical and chemical restraints that are used, so this is possible, and I think we need to be doing a lot more encouraging of aged-care facilities to make sure they're implementing these processes instead of relying on chemical restraints. We must ensure that all facilities are implementing best-practice standards that allow older people to live in a safe, secure and home-like environment and move freely without undue restriction. We shouldn't be using these sorts of restraints as a measure of convenience.

I'd like to briefly touch on aged care for First Nations people. Our First Nations people are ageing at a much faster rate than the non-Indigenous population, yet we know they face significant barriers to accessing aged-care services. The government should be addressing these. These are both in the remote communities and also in urban communities, and people's cultural needs are not getting met. The cultural inappropriateness of many of the aged-care services is a key barrier to accessing appropriate services. Community engagement and cultural support are key to supporting our older First Nations people in aged care, and the aged-care royal commission has, unfortunately, heard a lot of accounts of First Nations people struggling to receive culturally appropriate, adequate aged care. At one hearing we heard how Torres Strait Islands nursing home residents are being denied access to traditional food while in care. In Darwin, the royal commission heard of an Aboriginal lady being forced to move 800 kilometres from her home to a centre in Darwin. She gave evidence to the commission and said: 'Can I ask for aged care in remote communities? We don't have aged care.'

Given what we know about the importance of community for First Nations people regarding aged care, all-too-common situations like these, where people have to move hundreds of kilometres from home for aged care, are particularly harmful. We need to reset the relationship with First Nations people across this country and across many issues, including aged care. We need to make sure that First Nations aged care is community controlled and is designed and delivered by First Nations people and that First Nations organisations are delivering culturally appropriate aged-care services.

Another barrier felt acutely by First Nations people is the poor provision of dementia care, which I've just touched on. We need a particular focus for First Nations people, who experience dementia at rates three to four times higher than non-Indigenous people do. That puts a whole other focus on how we deliver aged care. There are many, many issues that we are facing in the field of aged care in this country. We have an ageing population with growing expectations and needs. People are sicker as they go into residential aged care.

We support this legislation but consider that we need urgent action on so many issues, including mental health. The government has moved to allocate additional funding for mental health in residential aged care, and I acknowledge that. I'm extremely concerned about the way that is being delivered, in a patchwork of measures across the country, because it's being delivered through the PHNs. I'm not having a go at the PHNs, but we don't have a consistent approach across the country. From what I have heard, through talking to many, some of the services being delivered are better than others, but at the moment we are not guaranteeing adequate mental health care for those in residential aged care.

We need to lift our game on residential aged care. We've heard through the royal commission the now depressingly familiar accounts of people's lived experience. We need to do things differently. We need to lift our game. We need to make sure that we have a system that is fit for the future. Issues that have recently been aired in the media about the services delivered by Bupa, for example, should send a very strong signal both about the way our services have been delivered and that we can't continue going down that path.

We support this legislation. We'll monitor its implementation and continue to help and critique the delivery of aged care in this country. We'll then push for more reform in light of the recommendations that come from the royal commission. But the royal commission cannot be used as an excuse not to take action when and where it's needed before that process.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to make a short contribution on this bill, the Aged Care Amendment (Movement of Provisionally Allocated Places) Bill. As has already been outlined, Labor will be supporting the bill. It is fairly non-controversial legislation. It goes essentially to making procedural changes to allow the Secretary of the Department of Health to allow approved providers of residential aged care to move provisionally allocated residential aged-care places from one region to another within a state or territory.

I want to take the opportunity to talk about matters involving aged care, because they have been a matter of great concern across the country generally and have given rise to a royal commission, which is underway as we speak. The issues concerning aged care have been of particular concern on the Gold Coast, in my home state of Queensland, in recent times because of the dreadful incidents we saw at the Earle Haven nursing home only a few weeks ago. For those who don't recall, what happened was that over 70 frail residents of the Earle Haven nursing home needed to be moved because of the sudden closure of that nursing home over what appears to have been a contractual dispute, although those matters are still under investigation. What was very concerning was that that sudden closure occurred after a very long history of sanctions being issued against the operators of the Earle Haven nursing home by federal government regulatory authorities. I recognise that there are a number of investigations underway, which I hope will get to the bottom of these matters, but I know that all of us in Queensland were very concerned that an operator could continue running for so long when it had such a question mark over its capacity to deliver services and to treat residents and their families properly, not to mention the staff, who were underpaid as well. There were a number of incidents where the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union, on behalf of staff, took legal proceedings over underpayment and the failure to pay superannuation, and a number of sanctions were issued by federal authorities over very serious matters like failure to provide adequate nutrition for residents and failure to ensure hydration of residents—really basic matters that go to the health of residents in these facilities. I know that in my mind, and probably in the minds of many other people, it raised questions about how many care facilities there may be in Queensland or across the country which similarly have been the subject of many sanctions by federal authorities yet continue to go on. Those matters are under investigation.

I again commend the Queensland state member for Gaven, Meaghan Scanlon, for her great leadership in managing this dispute. She was there from the first moment the problems arose and continued to be there well into the night on the day that people were moved. The problems around aged care on the Gold Coast were something she had been raising well before this incident and she has continued to do so.

Also concerning in recent days has been the continuing failure of the owner of the Earle Haven facility to appear at a state government inquiry which is looking at these matters now. On two occasions now, the owner of the Earle Haven facility has failed to appear when called at this inquiry. To be fair, on both occasions he has pleaded illness, and we can only presume that he is telling the truth and there is a genuine reason for his absence. But it is important that he does come forward and participate in this inquiry so our members of parliament in Queensland can ask legitimate questions about how these events occurred.

The other thing I want to point to regarding aged care generally is the worrying responses we had from the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians today during question time about very serious matters involving aged care. Now, I know that for a long period of time the Prime Minister has continued to deny that he, as Treasurer and then as Prime Minister, cut funding from aged care in Australia. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, the facts are very clear. All you have to do is look at the budget papers and they will tell you that funding for aged care was cut by over $1 billion by the Prime Minister when he was the Treasurer of this country. It is another example, a little bit like what we saw with 'Shanghai Sam', where the Prime Minister tries to get away with saying one thing when the actual facts demonstrate he is not telling the truth. He is earning a reputation as someone whose statements can't be trusted, whether they be about former members of this parliament and nicknames that he may have decided to use against them or about other matters, including things he did to cut funding for aged care and many other services when he was the Treasurer.

I know the Prime Minister wants to disown his past and the cuts that he imposed on aged care and many other services in this country but, unfortunately for him, the budget papers tell the real story, and we will continue to remind people of that. It is no surprise then that, because of the cuts that the current Prime Minister, as Treasurer, imposed on aged care, we are now seeing growing waiting lists for a range of aged-care services in this country. The opposition tried to highlight that in question time today by asking the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, who is here now, to confirm that there are more than 129,000 older Australians waiting for their approved home care packages, an increase of 21,000 from March 2018. We got all sorts of numbers, all sorts of statistics and all sorts of explanations from the minister, Senator Colbeck, during question time but not a straight answer to the one question we actually asked. The minister then also refused to confirm that there are more than 75,000 older Australians who aren't receiving any home care package at all.

What he has tried to do when being asked about people who aren't receiving home care packages—as did previous coalition ministers for aged care—is go off on a tangent and talk about the fact that some people are getting some form of assistance even though it might not be what they're actually assessed as needing, as if that is some sort of brilliant excuse. The reality is that there are tens of thousands of Australians who have been assessed by the federal government's own department as needing a certain level of aged care but are not receiving it because of the backlog on the waiting list, which is there because of the Prime Minister's cuts that he imposed when he was the Treasurer. Unfortunately for older Australians, the chickens are starting to come home to roost. Because of the cuts the Prime Minister made to aged care when he was the Treasurer, those chickens are coming home to roost and are being seen in growing waiting lists for home care and other types of aged care.

The most concerning result of these cuts and the increased waiting lists is that, tragically, we have seen about 16,000 people in Australia die while being on the waiting list—16,000 older Australians who deserve our respect, our support and our assistance in their elderly years have, due to cuts that this government has imposed on aged care, died while waiting for a home care package or some other form of aged-care service. That is a disgrace and is a direct consequence of the cuts that the Prime Minister, as the then Treasurer, imposed on aged care. I really hope that the minister does take a bit more interest in the number of people who are on these waiting lists and does a bit more to try to restore the funding that his own Prime Minister took away when he was the Treasurer.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I've come to the Senate this evening to make a contribution on this Aged Care Amendment (Movement of Provisionally Allocated Places) Bill 2019 because I think it is important to put on the public record, to put on the record of the Senate, what is in fact the real story around aged-care funding in our country and, more particularly, what is the successful story of aged-care funding in our country following the election of the coalition government. If you listened closely to what the previous speaker, Senator Watt, had to say you could hear that temptation to resort to scare tactics, the sort of commentary that is designed not to have a significant input into the policy debate but to unnecessarily scare and spook older Australians, and by extension their families, around what is happening with regard to access to home care packages in our country.

The story of the development of a modern aged-care system is, I think, a story of two elements. The first is the introduction of much greater transparency into how our aged-care system works. I remember back in the very late 1990s and early 2000s that a key element of that transparency was the proper reporting and policing of aged-care homes and the establishment of the Aged Care Quality Standards Agency—I think that's what it was called. It had the responsibility of not just policing and raising the level of standards in residential aged-care homes but, importantly, making those reports transparent. What we saw as a result of that initiative, a Howard government initiative, was better standards in aged-care homes because standards became transparent. Because of that transparency, an unfortunate breach of those standards became very apparent, so people in residential aged-care homes and their families could see good aged-care homes being operated in our country but also those that needed much greater care and attention. I think that has been a particularly significant development of the Australian aged-care system.

The other element, and it has been touched on here today, is access to public funding—the minister is in the chamber. This has meant that as those small numbers of Australians who require residential aged care—I think it is still only between eight and 10 per cent of older Australians who actually require residential aged care—reach that point, they get a residential aged-care service that is of a high quality that meets their needs, particularly as they start to enter higher levels of frailty, therefore requiring residential aged care and support. Of course, I think a subset of that is the growth in demand and the growth in the provisioning for home care packages—that is, the desire that older Australians have to stay in their homes for as long as they possibly can, to be cared for in their homes for as long as they can and, hopefully, to avoid going into residential aged care and having their families avoid the stress of having to make some of those difficult choices around residential aged care.

I think it's important to put on the record this evening what the story is with regard to waiting times. I emphasise this point: this debate is a product of transparency. This debate exists not because it's a new issue but because it is more transparent to people now than it has been in the past. It's transparent because the coalition government has taken a conscious policy position to make the issue more transparent. It is wrong to suggest that the challenges did not exist in previous governments. I'd argue the point that they did exist; they were just invisible to many people.

Let's just have a look at some of the facts in the brief time that's available to us tonight. What we know is that, in the end of the financial year data of 2018-19, there were some 125,117 Australians who had access to home care packages, compared to 99,932 at the same time last year. That is a 25 per cent increase in just one year—an increase in the access that Australians have to home care packages. I don't know about anyone else, but I would consider that a success. I would consider that a measure that gives older Australians and their families increased security and increased certainty, not less. What does that mean? That means that over 97 per cent of senior Australians waiting for a package at their assessed level have been offered some support from the Commonwealth government.

This idea that somehow people are not being supported is just untrue. Ninety-seven per cent of senior Australians waiting for a package at their assessed level have been offered support from the Commonwealth government. This is also important, and this is important because, if this is what has been achieved in three months, imagine what will be achieved in 12 months or during the course of this term for the Morrison government. The list of people waiting has gone down by seven per cent in just three months—from 129,000 to 119,000. I would regard that as a successful outcome in just three months. Others will be able to tell you what the trend of that would mean over 12 months and over the course of the term of this government. It's important to recognise that a very, very clear and conscious priority of this government is to give Australians greater access to home care and greater access to residential care.

In the interest of fairness, I think it is important to demonstrate that aged-care issues have been top of mind for various governments for a long period of time, and we know that, as the Australian population continues to age, the demand for home care and residential aged-care services is going to increase. And, importantly, what is also going to increase is their level of expectation about the quality of that care, so that's why it's particularly important for choice to be added to the aged-care system so that people can choose where they might get their services from, who they might get their services from and the quality of that care that they get.

I think it's worth demonstrating to people just how far we have come. In 2012-13, the last years of the Labor government, there were just 60,000 home care packages—just 60,000. That increased to 124,000 in 2018-19 and is expected to grow again to 157,000 in 2022-23. What does that mean? That means a 161 per cent increase. Now, if you were listening only to the contributions of senators on the other side, you would think that less money had been going to aged care—not true. You would be thinking that the quality of aged care in our country is diminishing—not true. You would think that the waiting time is a recent or new policy challenge—not true. Waiting times are a product of transparency in the system.

Let's think about this: when Labor had an opportunity just a few months ago to talk about aged care, what did they do? What did they say? At the last election, Labor provided no additional funding in their costings for home care places and no additional funding for aged-care quality, workforce or residential aged care. It's a little bit rich, even for Senator Watt—a Labor senator from Queensland, which is worth footnoting because Labor got a very, very big whack on 18 May in Queensland—and others to come to this chamber and talk about improvements to workforce, improvements to quality, improvements to care standards and concerns about waiting lists when just three months or so ago in the lead-up to 18 May they had an opportunity to put their best foot forward, and what did we get? No additional funding in their costings for home care places and no additional funding for aged-care quality, workforce or residential aged care.

I could go on all evening but I'm sure we are just seeing the beginning of Labor's attempts to make aged care their latest scare campaign—to make aged-care concerns increasingly worrisome for older Australians and their families when there's no need for that. I'm sure we'll be debating these issues over the course of the next few months and during the course of this term. But, just to remind people, it is totally untrue to suggest there's been a reduction in aged-care funding. It's totally untrue that Australians have cause for concern about the quality of their aged-care services into the future. The coalition's record of achievement is strong. It's a record of achievement that's been delivered by previous aged-care ministers Kevin Andrews and Julie Bishop and Minister Colbeck, who is in the chamber now. The coalition's record is strong when it comes to providing consistent funding for improved quality in our aged-care services and to making sure Australian families have real quality choices when they come to make those very, very difficult decisions about how to care for their ageing parents into the future.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank colleagues for their contributions to the debate. Much of it was quite considered, and debate is an important part of the way that we progress this very important issue for Australians—important for Australians regardless of age but particularly for those who are seeking to access services. I would particularly like to thank Senator Smith for his contribution in which he corrected the record on some of the misinformation that had been provided previously by those opposite. It is important that the debate is balanced, and thanks go to Senator Siewert for her considered comments. I know that over a long period of time she has been very passionate and attentive to this issue. It remains a significant challenge for this country to continue to provide high-quality aged care for senior Australians and their families, and they deserve access to high-quality care.

As the Prime Minister has said, and as I've said on a number of occasions, it's important that we continue to strive in this space. It is an area where community demand continues to change, and we've seen that over the last two or three decades in particular, with more people looking to stay in their own residence rather than move into a residential aged-care facility. This specific piece of legislation deals with the capacity of the system to be adaptive in respect of the allocation of places, and it's important that we continue to adapt to the way that senior Australians are looking to support their aged-care needs.

Importantly, this legislation—and I acknowledge the support from across the chamber for the legislation—supports approved providers to make residential aged-care places ready for use as quickly as possible. We know that constructing facilities can be sometimes difficult, time-consuming and an expensive exercise. There are significant resources required. It's not uncommon for providers to finish aged-care homes with fewer rooms than originally intended, due to planning or construction issues. Where this is the case, the Aged Care Act 1997 needs to be flexible enough to allow these leftover places to be moved to another suitable location. Similarly, a provider may find a more suitable or affordable location for an aged-care home a few minutes drive from the planning region to which the places were originally allocated. Again, the act needs to be flexible enough to allow for this.

The amendments in this bill seek to add that flexibility to the act by allowing provisionally allocated residential aged-care places to be moved from one region to another where a provider can demonstrate that the movement is in the interest of aged-care consumers, there is a clear need for places in the region and it is not detrimental to the region to which the provisionally allocated places are currently allocated. The change, as I've indicated, is in the interests of all older Australians and the broader community, and it intends to remove a potential barrier to the community in accessing residential aged care, thereby aligning with the government's commitment to ensuring the delivery of high-quality aged-care places when and where they are needed. I again thank senators for their contributions and commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.