House of Representatives
Tuesday 27 October 2020
I want to continue my remarks about the poor standards of aged care in this country and also the piecemeal approach to aged care that this government continues to offer older Australians. When I was elected, the number of those on waiting lists was somewhere around the 70,000 mark—a shocking number—which was too high at the time and which the government has now left to skyrocket to six figures. I note that new data has revealed that there are now 102,000 older Australians still facing a lengthy wait for home care. In my opinion, this crystal-clear data confirms that the Morrison government has failed to respond to the initial findings of the royal commission.
We know the royal commission's interim report described the waiting list for home care as 'neglect' and called for urgent action last year, yet 100,000 Australians are still waiting for care. It is not good enough. Despite a number of splashy and over-the-top announcements for so-called new home-care packages, once again, the Morrison government is found to be delivering big on headlines and announcements but failing to deliver real change for older Australians waiting for care. Putting it simply, there were 100,000 Australians waiting for care when the royal commission called for action, and there are still 100,000 waiting today. The tragic failure of the Morrison government to not better protect older Australians in aged-care homes from COVID-19 will only mean more people will choose to receive care at home.
The home-care packages announced in the budget won't come close to fixing the lengthy waiting list. My question to the government today, to the minister and to the Prime Minister's office, is: how is it acceptable that older Australians in their 90s are waiting for years to receive the care that they have been approved for? Last month officials confirmed more than 30,000 older Australians had died in the last three years while waiting for care packages that they had already been approved for. Those are some a pretty hard-hitting facts, and it's a tragedy that I have to rise in this parliament and speak out for those people who don't have a voice within this government.
Day after day, the evidence of serious neglect in aged care mounts, and all we're seeing from the government is them simply running away, passing the buck and not accepting their own failures. Today I draw the line in the sand and speak out on behalf of aged-care residents and people in desperate need of care packages in my own electorate and call out the government for their neglect. It's quite frankly shocking that the government aren't on their feet every day, trying to look at solutions for this.
In my home state of Queensland, where I represent and talk to older Australians, one of the last things I did before we went into lockdown was host my seniors morning tea in the suburb of Jindalee, at the Jindalee Bowls Club. I put on a morning tea once or twice a year, and hundreds of seniors join me, normally with our local hardworking state member, Ms Jessica Pugh, and members of the Queensland Police Service, for safety tips at home. Once again I was bombarded with residents coming to me to say a loved one, a partner or spouse, was in desperate need of care yet the government was simply ignoring them. Quite frankly, it has simply got worse during the COVID crisis.
The aged-care community of this nation are the legacy holders for our country, and it is the government's responsibility to look after the very people who brought us here today, the people whose work this nation was built on. I'm very proud to represent thousands of seniors in the Oxley community. I speak for them and their families when I say that when I met with them in their homes, pre-COVID, or when I've spoken to them on the telephone during the pandemic and coming out of it there has been fear in their voices and there have been tears in their eyes. It's unacceptable that people at such a vulnerable time in their life are left with literally no hope due to the ridiculous delays in processing these home-care packages.
The Prime Minister says the government wants to help people with 'the choices they want to make about their future', but these figures prove that older Australians have very little choice. Not a single pensioner is choosing not to receive the home-care package they have been approved for, yet that is what the government is forcing them to do. National seniors advocates—respected Australians like Ian Henschke—have said older Australians overwhelmingly want to stay in their homes, which costs the government less than it would to place them in nursing homes. To take a look at the concerns about how this is impacting the community, you need only turn up to any seniors gathering. They will all tell you the same thing: home-care providers are flat chat. And I pay tribute to all of those amazing frontline workers who have continued to provide aged-care services in homes.
There is another issue that I want to place on record today. I represent over 50,000 people who were born overseas or have family from overseas. The lack of non-English-speaking aged-care package support workers is a huge problem. I know the member for Greenway, who represents a diverse community, has had representations from local residents with cultural and language barriers. There's a significant problem in the Vietnamese community that I represent. In the Oxley electorate I represent one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the country, in the suburbs of Darra, Inala and Durack. These are people who helped build those suburbs. They came out with absolutely nothing and have made such a wonderful contribution to our local economy through business endeavours and through support for education and higher education, yet we see a lack of non-English-speaking support services. I know that places additional strain on family structures where there are people with early-onset dementia, who have confusion over language and sometimes return to their first language. It's very difficult for families to coordinate aged-care services. So, once again, I call on the government to look particularly at home-care packages for people from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
As I said, these reforms have done nothing to address the growing home-care package waiting list. Sadly, we know that around 25,000 older Australians have entered residential aged care prematurely in the past two years because they could not access their approved home-care packages. They are 25,000 Australians who wanted to stay in their home but, because those home-care packages weren't available, were, in some cases, removed from their local support networks, whether it was their local GP, their local pensioner club or their neighbours, and placed in a residential aged-care facility. They perhaps couldn't afford to go into it, but it was all that was available. That is an absolute disgrace when, under the Morrison government, Australians were promised choice.
The median waiting time for older Australians going into residential aged care has grown by more than 100 days under the Liberal and National parties—from just one month to a five-month wait. The Productivity Commission's report on government services, released in January this year, pre-COVID, revealed that older Australians waiting for high-level home-care packages are waiting almost three years to get the care they've been approved for. The report also revealed that older Australians are waiting longer, as I've said, to enter residential aged care. The government has made improvements to the transparency of home-care fees; however, home-care recipients are still raising concerns about the rising cost of administrative and daily fees that are deducted from their packages, therefore, impacting on the amount of care hours they receive.
Then finally we come to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety interim report, which was handed down in October last year. The commissioners have already put forward what needs to happen urgently, and yet we are well down the track now and still nothing has taken place. Our seniors need the care they need most in the comfort of their home. We need to end the overreliance on chemical restraint in aged care. We need to end the unacceptable number of young people entering residential aged care.
As usual, the government's response to the interim report has been utterly hopeless. The commissioner has recommended urgent action to address the home-care packages waitlist, but the government has only put around 5,500 home-care packages into the system from 1 December last year. As we saw, this is woefully inadequate, as there are more than 100,000 older Australians waiting for their approved home-care package.
I am really pleased that the shadow minister, and member for Franklin, has been highlighting this, alongside our Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, who has given keynote speeches and will continue to hold the government to account on their appalling record when it comes to aged care. I know from consulting with my own local residents; aged-care providers in the Oxley electorate, brilliant aged-care providers who are stretched to the max and having my own lived experience with parents who have lived in residential aged care—point in case with my mother living in aged care for around seven years. She loved the aged-care facility that she was residing in, but due to staffing short cuts she was admitted to hospital with dehydration and malnutrition. That is not a reflection on the level of care that she was given. It was simply they didn't have the resources. She is only one of literally tens of thousands of people who have suffered due to poor care, because this government is not investing and not supporting the aged-care sector.
I'll finish where I began. I am strongly in support of the second reading amendment today to highlight to this House the government's piecemeal approach to aged-care reform. I will continue to keep speaking out for older Australians in the Oxley electorate. I will continue to keep speaking out for older Australians in this country. We need to do better for those who are frail and vulnerable and this government needs to start listening to that message.
