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

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today four proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Gallagher:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Liberals' record of inaction and cuts, which over the last six years has led to Australia's broken aged care system.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

We've had six years of Liberal federal governments. We've had the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments. With that, we've had three ministers who have failed older Australians. We have a new minister, who unfortunately demonstrated in question time yesterday, and again today, that he isn't across his brief whatsoever.

If we go back to the last Labor government, when there were major reforms in aged care in this country and the foundational Living Longer Living Better reforms were brought forward, we see that we did that in a bipartisan manner. The former minister, Mark Butler, engaged with those who were then in opposition. It says a lot about the calibre of those opposite that back then they were willing to work in the interests of all older Australians, but over the last six years—and it's been reaffirmed since the election of the Morrison government—all they have done is use the aged-care sector as a cash cow, an ATM. The Prime Minister has told the Australian people—in particular, older Australians—that he is a Prime Minister who is going to make aged care a priority. Well, we'd better get the facts on the table, on the record. When he was the Treasurer he cut $1.2 billion out of the aged-care sector. The Turnbull-Morrison governments have been taking money out of this sector year after year.

What we on this side of the chamber say—and we've said this countless times—is that we are willing to work with the government to bring about the reforms that are necessary to fix the broken aged-care sector in this country, because older Australians deserve nothing less, and families of older Australians deserve nothing less. But we have seen a continuum of failed ministers who haven't been across their portfolios. Quite frankly, I don't think they have demonstrated any real interest in older Australians. And we should be ashamed of that from the government of the day.

We now have a minister who has not been able to answer the simplest of questions, which is: how many older Australians who have been approved for their home care package are still waiting for a package? Now, we know it's in excess of 120,000 older Australians. We know that too many older Australians are dying after they have already had their home care package approved. That is unacceptable in this country. It is totally unacceptable for a country as rich as we are here in Australia.

We know that around two in three older Australians accessing aged-care services are women. They need to be assured that the support they're getting in their own homes is of the standard that they deserve. We need to know that all checks and balances have been carried out with the service providers. We also need this government—after the failings of the Abbott and Turnbull governments, and now the Morrison government—to address one of the big outstanding issues in relation to aged care in this country, which is that we do not have the workforce we need to ensure that older Australians get the care they need. We are not attracting people to come and work in this very important sector. Why aren't they coming to work? Because (a) they don't get the respect that they deserve, (b) they're certainly not remunerated to the level they deserve and (c) they know they do not have the support of the federal government. That has been demonstrated day after day by the failure of those who are on the government benches now.

Australia, we know, has a rapidly ageing population. It's not unique to Australia, but what we have to do is work together to ensure we have the best system possible in this country. The issue of our ageing population is not going to go away. We have to address it. We have to provide support to the sector so that we can attract the number of people we need to care and support older Australians, whether they're living in residential care or whether they are being supported in their own homes.

We know that there are always going to be shonky providers or people that really aren't up to the job of caring for people in their own homes. That's why we need to ensure that we have checks and balances in place. We need to ensure that people are meeting the security checks. We need to ensure that the training in this country is uniform. We have done so many inquiries into the aged-care sector in this country. Today in question time we talked about a number of the reports of those inquiries, like the Tune report. All those recommendations have been on the table for two years or more, and they still haven't been fully enacted. We know there have been at least 14 reports over the last six years and they are gathering dust in the minister's office. It's not good enough. To counter all of those reports, after six years of the government's own failing, they had to call a royal commission into their unsuccessful governance of this important sector.

Older Australians deserve so much more. Today in question time, when the minister was able to at least give us some sort of response, he said, 'We're not going to do anything until the final report is handed down from the royal commission.' Well, that's just not good enough. The government has had report after report. We have offered to sit down and work with the government to bring about the changes that are needed. We have had recommendations in a report from Mr David Tune, a very respected former public servant. The Carnell report has been ignored. There were only 10 recommendations in that report, and they haven't all been implemented. Why not? I don't like to say it, but I do firmly believe that this government, like the Abbott-Turnbull governments of the past, just do not prioritise older Australians to the level that they need.

In the past six years, as demonstrated now with Senator Colbeck as minister, the government have never had a cabinet minister responsible for this important public service area. We did. Former Minister Mark Butler was in cabinet. Before the last election, Labor gave the commitment that, if we were to win office, our minister responsible for aged care and older Australians would be in cabinet, where ministers have the authority to sit around the cabinet table, where the real decisions are made. But what have we got? We have a minister who is the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians and the Minister for Youth and Sport. I think it says a little bit about his capacity as a minister when he doesn't represent a minister from the other place. He's the only minister sitting in the Senate who doesn't rep another minister. That is a telling factor—it really is.

As I said, we are prepared to work with them, but after six years we have three failed ministers and a minister now who's obviously just not up to the task, who can't even answer simple questions in relation to the home care package waiting list in this country. He hasn't got an answer for the families of the 16,000 Australians who died after having an assessment made and before getting a package. That's the calibre of the minister that we have in this place, in this government, at this time. It is absolutely shameful. (Time expired)

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, what an invitation that was for bipartisanship! We just heard from Senator Polley reflecting on how, in the past, people across the chamber have worked together constructively in a bipartisan manner, and then Senator Polley gets up and gives the speech she just gave. That's hardly an invitation to work together on a bipartisan basis!

I have three preliminary points. Firstly, older Australians in this country voted overwhelmingly for the re-election of the coalition government at the last federal election. In my home state of Queensland, older Australians voted overwhelmingly for the re-election of the coalition government. Why? Because this government delivers for older Australians. Secondly, if you wanted to engage constructively on a bipartisan basis with the government in relation to these issues, you would not present a resolution in the nature of this one, which talks about 'inaction', 'cuts' and a 'broken aged-care system'. Broken? Seriously? Does anyone really believe that our aged-care system is broken? It could be better. It could always be better, but broken? The evidence just does not support this assertion. And, lastly, in the spirit of bipartisanship, the reflections on the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, were totally unnecessary. How can you expect to engage constructively in a bipartisan manner after the sort of rhetoric we just heard from Senator Polley?

Whenever I hear the Labor Party talk about cuts, whether it be cuts to aged-care services, cuts to education or cuts to health, I always know that, when you look at the figures and you look at the evidence, the evidence will be totally to the contrary. So what is the evidence? Since the coalition government was elected, aged-care spending has increased every single year. That's not a cut; that's an increase. One billion dollars of extra support for older Australians each year on average is not a cut; that's an increase. If the funding is more year on year, that is not a cut. That's an increase. Funding to aged care continues to grow, with our government investing an additional $7 billion in aged care over five years. That's not a cut; that's an increase. The Morrison government is delivering record investment—not cuts!—across the aged-care system over the forward estimates, growing from $13.3 billion in 2012-13 under Labor to $21.7 billion in 2019-20 to an estimated $25.4 billion in 2020-23, and this is characterised as a cut. It's not a cut. Making improvements to aged care for all senior Australians continues to be one of the Morrison government's key priorities.

Our recent track record in improving aged care, including since the royal commission was called, is extensive—not inaction, but action. We've invested $2.2 billion since the 2018-19 budget into home care packages to support more Australians to remain living in their own homes for longer. There's been a 25 per cent increase in access to home care packages in just one year. Is this a broken system? Does anyone actually truly believe this is a broken system? If you want to improve the system in the spirit of bipartisanship, maybe you could leave the overblown rhetoric and hyperbole at home, seriously. The federal government has released 14,275 new residential care places, including 13½ thousand residential places and 775 short-term restorative care places; allocated $60 million in capital grants for infrastructure works in rural and remote areas; established a new independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission; implemented new consumer focused Aged Care Quality Standards—there are a lot of actions here to read; put in place a new single Charter of Aged Care Rights covering 14 fundamental protections for all aged-care programs from safety, quality care, independence, information, personal privacy, control, fairness and choice; implemented new provider requirements to minimise physical and chemical restraint in residential aged care; and introduced the new National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program. I have a page here of actions, not inaction.

The federal government has provided a $320 million boost to residential care subsidies; invested $21 million for 13 research projects that will focus on risk reduction, prevention and tracking of dementia; established a specialist dementia care program; implemented an aged-care diversity framework; expanded the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program by approximately $50 million over four years; provided a capital grant of $20 million to establish a new aged-care service for First Nations people; and provided $4 million to increase aged-care services to people mainly in rural and remote locations through the multipurpose services program.

There are more actions—action upon action! The federal government has provided funding of up to $3 million to engage with organisations who assist aged-care providers delivering services under the NATSIFACP to transition to the new aged-care quality standards and allocated grants totalling $3.5 million to aged-care providers delivering aged-care services to Indigenous people to purchase equipment and undertake minor works. It would have been nice to have at least heard one word from those opposite that the government is undertaking action in this sector. If those opposite truly want to engage in this process in a bipartisan fashion then due respect needs to be given to the work that's been done in this area. The federal government has provided an additional $4 million to deliver more-flexible aged-care places, provided an ongoing 30 per cent increase to the viability supplement to support services in rural and remote Australia, provided an ongoing 30 per cent increase to the homeless supplement, giving providers operating residential and home care access to independent business advisory services, and provided $5.6 million in 2019-20 to implement phase 1 of a home care compliance framework.

This is what the Labor Party characterises as inaction and cuts. All the evidence is to the contrary. We all know that when the Labor Party accuses a coalition government of cuts all the evidence will be to the contrary. There have been increases year on year in government spending. Let's compare that to the Labor record. In terms of new home care packages, these have increased, not been cut, from 60,308 under Labor in 2012-13 to 125,117 in 2018-19—an increase. It went from 60,308 to 125,117. They're scheduled to increase to a further 157,154 in 2022-23—a 161 per cent increase.

Those opposite have absolutely no credibility when they bring to this chamber a resolution which talks about inaction, cuts and a broken aged-care system. The people in our aged-care system, the workers in that system, are working terribly hard. The system is not broken. This government is delivering for our elderly Australians—absolutely delivering for them—and that is why at the last federal election the people in my home state of Queensland gave a resounding tick of approval to the re-election of the coalition government.

Debate interrupted.