The Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021 is, as the member for Fowler has just said, such an important bill that we are speaking about right now. There is absolutely no doubt that the aged-care system in Australia is broken and that that is a serious concern with a serious impact on so many lives in my electorate and in electorates around the country.
It is a fact that, for eight years, this government has neglected older Australians. It has cut $1.7 billion from the sector and there have been nearly 11,000 deaths while people were waiting for home-care packages. There were 685 deaths in the last year from the coronavirus pandemic. Our aged-care homes continually face the problems of chronic understaffing, of people in their care being malnourished and, of course, of neglect in those facilities.
People in my electorate have very often told me of the suffering this has caused for them and for their loved ones during the lockdowns in Melbourne, when they haven’t been able to see their loved ones, because the system is so stretched, and when last year people died because the system wasn’t up to it. That should never have happened. People are unsure about what the future is for their loved ones. They are unsure and scared about having to enter our aged-care system, because they know it’s broken. They are concerned that this government, like with so much it does, will not get it right.
That’s why it’s important for me to be speaking on this bill today. I very much fear that what is going to happen in this space is that we’ll have some announcements from this government. We even had a royal commission—and that was a very important royal commission. But what we won’t have—
(Debate interrupted.)
I’ll pick up where I left off in speaking on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021—I seem destined to give this speech in small increments. But it is a really important topic and, as I was saying before, what really concerns me is that this important topic will go the way of all these things in terms of how this government will treat it. We have a royal commission that sets out the way we should go, but what we’ll get from this government will be spin and announcements but no substance. It is important to note that the royal commission made 148 recommendations and that the response to these recommendations is so far disappointing. The government has delayed and rejected key recommendations.
We know there’s not enough reform around workforce issues, around not improving wages. This is something I hear time and time again from people who work in the sector and people who rely on those who work in the sector. We are not going to fix this until we pay properly the people we are relying on to work in our aged-care sector. Regarding funding commitments, we know that this government is handing over $3.2 billion to providers with no strings attached, with nothing to say that the funding actually has to go towards providing the better food and the better care that the aged-care royal commission said is needed. And the home-care package waiting list of 100,000 is still not cleared. Importantly, the government has also ignored the recommendation to require a nurse to be on duty 24/7 in residential care. What a disgrace—such a core recommendation from the royal commission, and this government can’t even pick it up.
The government also hasn’t implemented the main increase in the number of mandatory care minutes in residential aged care. Again, I say that we know staffing levels, staffing conditions and pay are core to so many of the problems we see in our aged-care sector. It was picked up through the commission and it’s picked up in the conversations that I have in my community. It is neglect, that this government isn’t picking up those recommendations and implementing them.
While there are many good parts to this bill, it is important that the bill receive further scrutiny. That’s why I support the recommendation that it go to a Senate committee inquiry for further investigation. It is concerning that this bill hasn’t had the level of stakeholder consultation that it should have had. From our side, the stakeholders we’ve consulted with have all expressed concern that they haven’t had the chance to really provide input into and shape this bill.
The government is choosing to implement worker screening instead of the royal commission recommendation for a national registration scheme. I note that Commissioner Briggs noted how this scheme would take time to set up. So, on something that we need time to set up, this government has decided to not even deal with it yet. That is concerning, when we think about the quality of what’s provided in our aged care. There will be weaker governance standards. The governance standards proposed in this bill are less prescriptive than those recommended by the royal commission. Regarding the clarity and the insight that we have into what’s going on in our aged-care homes—the freedom of information exemption: currently providers are exempt from certain FOI requests. The royal commission recommended that this exemption be removed, but that has been left out of this bill. There are a couple of other issues that should also be addressed. As I said, the core of this issue, the core of this debate, must be about the government following through on the recommendations of the aged-care royal commission. We deserve an aged-care system that is funded properly, that is staffed properly and that works for all older Australians.
