When it comes to aged care in this country, we know those opposite are nothing more than a sham. I'm delighted to follow on from my colleague the member for Herbert, who is a terrific advocate for seniors and pensioners in North Queensland and has been a strong advocate in making sure that seniors in my home state are looked after. We know that, whilst the government are handing out billions of dollars to big business and the big banks, over 100,000 elderly Australians are languishing without appropriate aged care. All the spin, all the substance that the government like to put out—the smoke and mirrors that the government like to whirl around when it comes to question time or the minister talking about so-called record funding—won't change the fact that 100,000 elderly Australians are languishing without appropriate aged care. In my opinion, this is a government who simply don't have their priorities right. Rather than ensuring our elderly and vulnerable are provided with appropriate aged care and the dignity they deserve, the government persist with looking after their mates at the top end of town, suppressing wages, cutting school funding, cutting hospital funding and, despite what they might say, doing nothing for aged care in this country.
As we've heard already, just prior to the year's budget we had the health minister parading out in front of cameras, telling us how the government were going to look after elderly Australians. In the doorstop on 6 May, he said, 'It's going to be a very good budget for health and for aged care in particular.' As someone who represents a large and diverse community, when I heard that statement, I was looking forward to seeing real reform and, more importantly, real funding to deal with seniors and the difficulties that I've come across in my electorate in accessing aged care. I know members opposite have also had constituents, loved ones and families contact their electorate offices across Australia to complain, to worry anxiously, about whether their loved one—their parent, grandparent, husband, wife or partner—would have access to an aged-care place. Hearing that statement from the minister, I was heartened to think that the government had heard that message. We've all known about it; we've heard it day-in, day-out. But what is the minister's idea of a good budget for aged care? If he thinks no new funding is a good budget, I would hate to see what a bad budget looks like. Around the same time as the health minister was bragging about the so-called good budget for aged care, there were also big figures leaked to the media, including the astronomical figure of a supposed $100 billion of new money for aged care. On closer inspection, it became evident that this was also not an increase in funding across the forward estimates. In fact, there was no new money.
Speaking to the finer points of the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018, the bill is a result of the Review of national aged care quality regulatory processes, also known as the Carnell-Paterson review, which was handed to government on 25 October 2017 with a focus on quality care. The review made 10 recommendations, one of which was to establish an independent aged-care quality and safety commission. The government adopted this recommendation back in April this year but is yet to provide details in relation to this new quality and safety agency. On this side of the House, we welcomed the announcement by the government, but we are concerned that the government has not given consideration to the delivery of care across multiple settings and that the minister's announcement seemed to be very focused on those providers delivering care in a residential aged-care environment as opposed to elderly Australians who choose to receive care in their own home.
I thought to myself: 'Why is this the case? Why would the government be more focused on residential aged care than home based care?' I can tell you why. It is because, under the Turnbull government, there are over 100,000 elderly Australians who are on the wait list to receive appropriate aged home care. These numbers are startling. Included in this figure of 100,000 elderly seniors, there are more than 300 seniors who have waited more than two years for their approved home care package, without any care whatsoever. But it doesn't stop there. There are a further 6,336 older Australians who currently have no care at all and have waited for care for more than a year. On top of the 100,000-strong wait list for appropriate home care packages, the latest figures show that the waiting list grew by more than 20,000 between 1 July and December 2017 and is likely to continuing growing without the release of more packages.
Those opposite have said that the funding for home care packages that they are delivering is somehow looking after elderly Australians—but this is nothing more than a sham. In the budget we found that those opposite had funded just 14,000 new home aged-care packages over four years, which amounts, as the shadow minister has said, to nothing more than a cruel hoax. That equates to a mere 3½ thousand places per year, which isn't even enough to keep pace with demand. As I just mentioned, we know that the waiting list grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone, and the government's response is to allocate 16,500 packages short of what is required. What on earth is the sense in that? To put this into perspective, in my community, in the electorate of Oxley, that will mean just 23 extra home aged-care packages per year for the next four years for elderly Australians in my community—23 each year over the next four years.
Listening to the minister, he thinks that is a suitable and, more importantly, acceptable solution, but somehow wants to be congratulated for it. He somehow wants to be acknowledged that this government is doing something to deal with this crisis. What a sham! When it comes to aged care in this country, we should be doing all that we can to respect and look after those Australians who have worked hard and built this country over the last 50 and 60 years. These people laid the economic foundation for the prosperity we enjoy today, and the government should be doing more.
Government members interjecting—
Mr DICK: I take the interjections from those opposite. They think that they've done enough for elderly Australians and they can put their feet up. Well, today I'm here to tell the government: stop resting and start working for older Australians. We know that this tired government is running out of steam, but I plead with members of the government to listen to what the community is saying. Help those seniors who need a hand—those seniors who helped build this country.
Every day I see what quality aged care means for people like my mother and all of her friends, who live in a fantastic local residential facility. I know because I go and visit them and I hear the great work of the people who work in the aged-care sector—and tonight I pay tribute to the aged-care workers in this country who do so much to protect and look after our loved ones. We know that it's essential that we provide first-class, world-class aid to those thousands of elderly Australians, just like my mum, who are living in the aged-care system. I want the best system for my mother, just as I want every other family member in this country to have quality aged care. This government is failing the community, time and time again. Despite the government proudly announcing 14,000 extra places and trumpeting how great this year's budget was, there was not one extra dollar for Australia's aged-care system in this year's budget—not one single cent extra. What the government has done instead is pretend to give money to aged care. But the reality is that there isn't any additional funding. This is after the and Abbott Turnbull governments have cut aged-care funding by billions of dollars over the last five years. Collectively, these governments, in every budget, have cut aged-care funding. We have seen cuts to the Aged Care Funding Instrument and funding cuts to residential aged care—billions of dollars that are now not flowing to support older Australians in residential care.
It is now clear that the build-up to the budget and the government's rhetoric and nonsense around aged care did not match what was finally announced. It over-promised and drastically under-delivered. Here we have today the government making adjustments to aged care through this bill without addressing the main issue. This bill will make provision for a single set of quality standards that will apply to all for aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act and vary the functions of the CEO of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. The new single set of standards proposed in this bill will apply across all areas of care and will be effective from 1 July 2019. But, like most things the government do, they couldn't get their house in order. This is an amended date as there were concerns from the sector that the original date of 1 July 2018 would give stakeholders and providers little time to do the necessary preparatory work. In bringing this bill to the House, the minister said:
The single quality framework places consumers at the centre of their care and focuses on giving people greater choice and flexibility. It is part of the reforms being progressively implemented in aged care to create a competitive, market-based system where consumers drive quality and where red tape is reduced for providers of aged care.
Of course we want elderly Australians at the centre of aged care and of course we want quality for those in the aged-care system, but the actions of the government do not measure up to these words.
It was only last week that I had the pleasure of visiting two new state-of-the-art aged-care facilities in the Centenary Suburbs in my community—Seasons Aged Care and the Wesley Mission's Sinnamon Village. Both of these facilities, I am very proud to see, place the residents at the heart of everything they do. I commend them for their dedication in doing so. However, even the managing director of Seasons Aged Care recognises and pointed out this government's deficiency when it comes to caring for our elderly Australians. In a letter I received from Mr Loudon earlier this year, he pointed out:
We have seen the national queue for home-care packages continue to grow to over 100,000 older Australians who have been assessed as needing care and support but are unable to access this care and support at their assessed level of need.
In a policy environment predicated on older Australians ageing in place close to family and friends and being part of local communities, it is unacceptable that a growing waiting list of 100,000 older Australians are unable to get the level of care they require.
He goes on further to state:
This situation impacts on the health and wellbeing of older Australians and results in higher costs to government in the form of premature entries into residential aged care and/or avoidable presentations to hospital emergency departments and/or unwanted hospital admissions.
When the industry is calling the government out for its lack of action on aged care, you know there is trouble.
Earlier this week I watched the interest of colleagues on this side of the House, and it is pretty noticeable that on this bill tonight we have one government speaker. No-one else from the government has bothered to actually enter the debate and talk about this issue. So I commend the shadow minister. I commend our leader on this side of the chamber, Bill Shorten, who is making quality access to aged care a major point of difference in how we on this side of the chamber deliver health care and what the government has on offer.
The member for Franklin, the shadow minister, rightly pointed out that the last package of data revealed that almost 105,000 older Australians were waiting for a home-care package, and the average waiting time for a high-level package has blown out to more than a year. However, the situation may be worse than this. The minister's department, as we know, has delayed releasing important data on those waiting for home care packages. Tonight I add my voice to the growing chorus from this side of the chamber, from the sector and also from the people entering into the residential aged care system. Why hide the data? Why not be up-front with the Australian community about how we are placed for dealing with some of the most frail and vulnerable people in this country?
I say: release the data, come clean, and be up-front with the Australian people. The Minister for Aged Care must be honest with older Australians and immediately release the latest round of data on the waitlist for home-care packages.
When it comes to delivering funding for the aged-care sector, when it comes to the crunch, this side of the chamber can be trusted and older Australians can have a guarantee that we will deliver that funding. Sadly, those on the government benches have proven through this budget alone that they are not interested in hearing the pleas of older Australians. The Turnbull government has promised the world to older Australians waiting in the queue for a home-care package.
We know this government is truly inept when it comes to driving aged-care reform. More importantly, it's been neglectful in not funding residential and home-care services. As I've mentioned a number of times today, there are 105,000 older Australians waiting for a home-care package. This is shocking and simply unacceptable.
