Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) 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 by Opposition senators today.

I'm not going to get into the bedroom tax; I think my colleagues will do that topic more justice than I can; my comedic timing is not as good as theirs! I want to touch on, particularly, the question asked by Senator Blyth and answered by Senator McAllister about the availability of aged-care packages and the amount of time people are waiting. Mindful of the President's ruling about the use of language, I'm not going to quote the Prime Minister directly from his statement at the Bush Summit in Ballarat on Friday, but he quite clearly told the audience there that he was 'not going to mislead people', to use a euphemism here. This is a situation where the government has continually been uneconomical with the truth and has not levelled with the Australian people about the availability of aged-care packages.

This is the Prime Minister back in March 2021. He said

We cannot be satisfied with a situation where older Australians are dying while waiting for their homecare packages.

But my colleague Senator Blyth just recounted an episode—and this is happening across the country, across all electorates, and senators and lower house MPs are hearing this from their communities—a contact that one of her colleagues had had from a Michael from Western Australia whose mother had been approved for a level 4 package back in November. Sadly, she passed away in March, having not received a package at all. The figures here are quite startling. This isn't an isolated case. We've got about 88,000 Australians who've been assessed as eligible for a home-care package but who are still waiting to receive that package. On top of that, we've got about 121,000 Australians who are still waiting to be assessed for a home-care package. That's some 200,000 Australians, a not insignificant number, a pretty large proportion of whom are elderly or needy who are waiting to be assessed for a home-care package or who have been assessed and are waiting to receive it.

The evidence suggests that, even once they've been assessed as eligible for a home-care package, people are waiting up to 15 months to access that service. Bear in mind that these are people in their 70s, 80s and sometimes 90s. Time is quite precious to them, and their ability to live independently and with dignity at home is often highly dependent on their ability to access help. That's what these home-care packages are meant to provide. According to My Aged Care's own website, if you are assessed as medium priority the estimated time for all packages at the moment is nine to 12 months—that is, once you've been assessed as eligible you're waiting at least another nine to 12 months. So it's not uncommon for people now to be spending up to two years from when they first expressed an interest in receiving a home-care package to when they actually receive some sort of support from the government

When the coalition was in government, once you were assessed as eligible, three to six months was the average wait time before you received it. I know this personally. My father was assessed as eligible for a home-care package. He received assistance within about three months. That was in part because the coalition delivered 123,000 additional home-care packages. But in their first term of government Labor have only released one-third as many new home-care packages—about 41,000. The result is that the waitlist for a home-care package has almost tripled in the last two years. It's gone from about 29,000 people waiting to about 87,000 people. That is also reliant on old data. We cannot get new data beyond 31 March because the government is refusing to provide data on how many people are waiting.

What's going on here is that the government has released far fewer home-care packages than the previous government. The government promised to deliver an additional 83,000 new home-care packages from 1 July. Not a single new one has been delivered. We had the relevant responsible minister Sam Rae claim last week that this was because the sector wasn't ready, but then we had sector peak bodies, providers, advocacy groups and the department all telling the Senate community affairs committee hearing last week that the sector is ready to provide that care now. I remind people that what the Prime Minister told people at Ballarat last week, last Friday, is not being honoured. People are not being levelled with here about access and availability of home-care packages. (Time expired)

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the questions from Senator Liddle. On this side of the chamber, our government is committed to taking action that delivers real change for First Nations people. We are delivering record funding in health, education and housing. That includes $842 million to fund essential services in remote communities. We are creating real jobs with decent conditions in remote Australia, addressing housing overcrowding and supporting healthy children and safe families. The accusation here is one of a lack of transparency and integrity. Well, I refute that. In this round of supplementary budget estimates, Indigenous issues will be part of every day of estimates—not a tack-on at the end but a part of every day of estimates. We've seen the cross-portfolio day roll out over the last number of years, certainly over the last term—I know I personally chaired the cross-portfolio water day—and it just became more and more irrelevant through that time, because we didn't have the right people turning up. At the last couple of estimates all we had was Senator Perin Davey, sitting there asking a whole bunch of questions. All power to Senator Davey, but they weren't exactly changing-the-world conversations, and they certainly weren't uncovering anything that everybody didn't know already. And the number of senators turning up just declined, declined, declined.

I'm now taking over as chair of Finance and Public Administration, which the Indigenous cross-portfolio day would have gone into. And I'm delighted to think that every single agency that turns up through the main body of estimates on the Finance and Public Administration Committee will be asked questions about Indigenous affairs. So I would just ask those on the other side: Who's coming? Who's going to turn up? Who's going to ask some questions? We can't wait. We're really looking forward to it. Let's see you at estimates. Maybe you're not sure what to ask about. Maybe I could help.

I've got a little list that I'd like to share with you, that you'd maybe like to look at. You need all the help you can get. There's our six-year partnership with the Northern Territory government and Aboriginal peak organisations in the NT to deliver those essential services I referenced earlier. You might want to ask about that. You might want to ask about the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People. Or perhaps you'd like to know how things are going for the more than 300 enrolments in the First Nations Health Worker Traineeship Program. That's a pretty good program. You might be interested in some of that. Ask about our programs, our progress, the challenges we might be facing—a bit of scrutiny; have a little look—maybe the economic partnerships, even.

If you're still stuck, I've got a couple of others you might want to think about when you're preparing for estimates, because I'm sure you're all going to turn up, those on the opposite side of this chamber. You're going to turn up to every single portfolio, not just a separate day but every day, and that's the standard week, plus the extra week that we're going to have in December. There's plenty of time, so don't hold back. Come on down and ask the questions directly of the secretaries of every department, of the experts in all these areas who are going to sit at that table. Maybe you're interested in the nutrition workers for remote communities that are rolling out, or maybe the remote laundries, or maybe strengthening the Indigenous procurement policy, which is part of our whole aim to turbocharge First Nations businesses and build economic empowerment. That's something that's really important to us. We'd be delighted to talk about it at estimates.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remote jobs.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remote jobs—particularly remote jobs; that's exactly right, Senator Stewart. These are all things that we are well open to talking about. We would be delighted to talk about them. We have some serious challenges, and we are facing them head on. We invite you to actually turn up—walk into the room, turn up, ask some questions—because we are ready, willing and able to answer every single one of them.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, thank you, Senator Grogan, for the suggestions on questions we could ask at estimates, if we were provided the opportunity to do that. Maybe we could ask about the fact that youth detention is up by 11 per cent, suicide is up by 9.4 per cent, adult incarceration is up by 3.5 per cent, preschool attendance is down by 2.6 per cent, and there are 1.2 per cent fewer children commencing school developmentally on track. So many of the domains are not on track, as we know. And of course this issue usually requires, and has received, bipartisan support. But, again, what we're not seeing here is transparency of this government. We're not seeing the transparency that is required.

You say we could ask these questions across every portfolio. What about the minister? Is the minister omnipresent all of a sudden? Can she possibly be in every committee, all at the same time, so that questions can be answered by the minister, who is accountable—who at least is meant to be accountable—for these outcomes? Of course that's not possible. That's the purpose of having a separate section. If there was an allocation of genuine time throughout the week, then maybe that could happen, but it's not what you're making possible. It's not what you're enabling by this change—and it is a disgrace.

On the other matter, the lack of accountability, we had the great question from Senator Blyth on the home-care packages and the lack of places that are being made available to Australians who are on significant waiting lists. We know that there are 87,597 older Australians currently waiting on the national priority system for a home-care place they have been assessed as needing. In addition, there are another 121,596 older Australians who are waiting to be assessed for home-care places. That means that there are over 200,000 Australians currently waiting for access to home-care support under Labor.

This is an outrage. It's a rapid deterioration of the circumstances for these Australians, and the list is blowing out considerably—considerably beyond what you're accusing us of letting happen in maintaining this list when we were in government. This is an outrage. We heard that Minister Rae had a difficult day in the House of Representatives today. Well, anyone could judge him on that. In the other place today he said—and this is a terrible statistic: 4,812 Australians have died since May while waiting for a home-care place. That is 4,812 Australians, as well as those that love and care for them and are deeply disheartened and dismayed by the fact that their loved one could not receive the proper care that they needed. They were on a waiting list for too long and they died while sitting on that waiting list.

The government are culpable with this answer and this statistic, and they need to get things into gear. It is unacceptable that these waiting lists have ballooned. It's unacceptable that these waiting lists have expanded under this government, and something needs to be done. What we need here is a government that is accountable. We know that they are avoiding accountability. We're seeing it through every answer to every question that's put to them by those here on this side, and even—dare I say—by those at the end of the chamber. There is a lack of accountability. There is a lack of preparedness by this government to front up to the Australian people and be honest about the situation. Unfortunately, there's a lack of action. There's a lack of rubber actually hitting the road. It's disappointing that this is going on here in this country. Australians are experiencing extraordinary wait times—the waiting lists have exploded under this government, and, as I pointed out, it is an absolute tragedy that 4,812 people, as we learnt today, have passed away while waiting for a home-care package. It's totally unacceptable.

Richard Dowling (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of responses to opposition questions. In the questions some individual cases were raised, and it is important that we do take the time to reflect on those circumstances, as Minister McAllister did. We also note that Minister Rae is very happy to receive those cases and look at those individual circumstances with the compassion that they deserve, but we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture at play here. Following the royal commission and everything we found out about aged care, we have now put in place the new Aged Care Act. It was passed with bipartisan support and it's a once-in-a-generation reset. Less than two months from today, on 1 November, it will take effect.

We have heard those distressing stories, and, to every family who's lived through those, we do extend our sympathies and compassion. And that's why we are acting. The answer is not to simply express regret; we need to fix the system so that those stories become less common, and that's what these reforms do. They ensure that people remain in their homes with dignity and access to care faster than has ever been possible in the past.

Let's look at the facts here. There are a lot of numbers being thrown around in this debate. If we look at the facts, yes, the number is too high. For the people waiting, it's always going to be too high, and I don't think anybody in this chamber could deny that. But things are moving. The government is allocating, on average, more than 2,000 home-care packages every single week, and that pipeline is being delivered and being improved in real time. For those who are assessed as highest priority—those who are most in need of aged care—the package is being allocated within a month. That's a concrete measure of progress.

Again, with all the numbers being thrown around, there is some conflation of the waitlists for packages and the time taken for assessments. They are different processes. It's important to note a key statistic: 99 per cent of those waiting for a package at their approved level are already receiving care. It's not at the right level, but they're not out of care. They are receiving care—99 per cent of them are—either through a lower-level package or through the Commonwealth Home Support Program. So the overwhelming majority are not without support while they wait. The median waiting time for an aged-care assessment is now down to 25 days from referral to completion of a support plan. And that timeline is trending down, under the new single assessment system.

Our goal is clear: a system that provides care with dignity, safety and compassion, that responds more quickly to people's needs and that gives older Australians confidence about the support they will receive. There was some shift in the timelines, from July to November, in terms of the implementation. There was obviously an election that delayed some progress there. We're implementing one of the biggest generational reforms we've ever seen in aged care, and it's important to take the time to get it right.

I know there's some confusion now, with the sector—or certain bodies within that sector—saying they're ready, but, if you look at the commentary from a few months ago, it was clear that many of the providers weren't ready, and I had many providers in Tasmania begging me, saying: 'Please take the message to Canberra that we just need a little bit more time to get our systems right.' The most important thing is that, when we implement this package, we do it properly and we deliver confidence and restore confidence in a system that hasn't done enough for older Australians in the past.

On 1 November, the new act takes effect. It's not just a date in the diary; it's the beginning of a better aged-care system—one that Australians can rely on.

On a less serious note, I was surprised—it felt like deja vu to be going back in time again to the goddamned spare bedroom tax. It's obviously getting a lot of clickbait online, this one. Next we'll be asking, 'Do we rule out taxing the doona, the bedside lamps and the pillows?' I think that, if only we could have a tax on coalition scare campaigns, we could raise a lot of revenue; maybe we'll put that idea into the next roundtable! Just to clarify: that's not an idea that came from the government. It has nothing to do with the government and it's not under any consideration. It wasn't even mentioned at the roundtable, and I think those opposite should know that because the shadow Treasurer was there for every minute of the discussion, and it's a characteristically dishonest conversation. (Time expired)

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a good segue into taking note, because, despite all of those overtures about, 'We're not going to do it; there's no spare bedroom tax,' we still didn't actually get a no from the government; we didn't get it ruled out. I note that Senator Wong did not do that. I didn't have it, I must say, and it has been reported, so, whatever the postulation from the other side is, it was actually reported, and we have not had it ruled out. And it wasn't on my bingo card, I have to say. I know that this government loves to spend—we know that. We know they love to get their claws into your money—we know that as well. But I didn't see this one coming. Perhaps it was just a thought bubble, but, once again, it was not ruled out. However, what we did hear from the Treasurer was that the tax system is—I think he used the word 'imperfect' and skewed in favour of the older generations, which should be alarming language for any of the Australians who have saved for their retirement. We heard that language coming from that side of the chamber in a different era many times before, with the potential for grabs on superannuation, negative gearing—you name it.

This, after all, is a high-spending socialist government, and we know the old adage. I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. So I thought to myself that we could come up with a couple of suggestions of things that might be considered at the next—what did we call it? The Economic Reform Roundtable was the language used. What about, for example, a pet tax? Australians love pets, and you could put on a sliding scale for pets. Pets produce carbon, so we don't like that. That's bad apparently. You could put on a sliding scale. It also achieves the other socialist goal of creating a miserable world, so that is something that could be considered.

What about a protest tax? We've seen that comfortably. Of course, you would have to be careful. You wouldn't want to tax Extinction Rebellion protests—just the ones where they take the Aussie flag. I thought about, possibly, an ambition levy, because nothing upsets socialists more than personal ambition, and taxing it would achieve the two-fold goal of knocking off people's hopes and dreams while also pumping money into the coffers. I think there could perhaps be conversation licensing fees. You could snuff out free speech—they love that! They are all into that at the moment. You could make yourself a nice little clip on the way through and consider a range of taxes on non-state-approved discussions on things like how proud we are of our country and history and give yourself a nice 25 per cent on top of that.

The point is that they're going to have to find ways to do it, because they're spending your money like it is going out of fashion. They are going to have to get creative. So they can laugh all they want about a spare bedroom tax. It's going to be something ludicrous.

Question agreed to.