Aged Care Reform

Aged Care Reform

Ms WELLS (Lilley) (17:22): One hundred and twelve days after the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety report was handed down this is the first-and small-step that we have seen from the Morrison government towards fixing our broken private aged-care system. The Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 1) Bill 2021 implements an urgent recommendation made by the royal commission to prevent the use of restraints and restrictive practices in aged care except for in the most extreme cases and only as a last resort. But you wouldn't know that this recommendation and its implementation were urgent based on how the Morrison government has prioritised it. Since this bill was first tabled on 27 May, it has been pushed back seven times. This bill has sat there collecting dust while older Australians continue to be abused and neglected every single day in our private aged-care system. What could be more urgent than protecting the health and wellbeing of older Australians?

Too many people experience the aged-care system as uncaring, unkind and even inhumane in its response to their basic needs. As I mentioned, this bill seeks to prevent the use of restraints and restrictive practices in aged care except for in the most extreme cases, because the royal commission specifically heard about the excessive use of physical and chemical restraints in residential aged care, which robs older Australians of their dignity and of their autonomy in their final months. Older people with mental health issues, particularly those suffering from the later stages of dementia, are often heavily medicated or physically restrained. In the final three months of 2019-20, residential aged-care services made 24,681 reports of intent to restrain and 62,800 reports of physical restraint devices. Frail older Australians whose hard work created the country that we love are being treated inhumanely. They are being neglected and they are being malnourished in a widespread scale across the country. And, when they turn to this federal government for help, they are being told to wait years and years for the services that they desperately need. It isn't good enough, and I will not stand by and watch this Morrison government pat itself on the back for doing the absolute arguable bear minimum after eight long years of doing absolutely nothing.

The aged-care crisis has not been created in a vacuum and it hasn't appeared out of nowhere; it has taken eight long years of policy decisions that prioritise profits over people. The Treasurer announced 3 billion to private aged-care providers with no strings attached. There is no requirement that this money is tied to improving care, or even to providing food. There is no guarantee that these funds will even be used to implement the recommendations put forward by the royal commission. We need to demand that providers prove that the 21.09 an hour under the award, less than someone stacking shelves at a supermarket. But the real outrage is further up the skills scale. If we look at aged-care workers who have reached classification 4, the award provides roughly $15 an hour less than their equivalent in disability-and disability workers aren't exactly on the best wicket either. Even a nurse with the exact same qualifications is paid less to work in aged care than they would get in a hospital setting.

I recently spoke to an aged-care worker from Queensland who told me she thinks she has had one pay rise in the last seven years, and that pay rise was 25c an hour. What an insult! Aged-care jobs should be good jobs. They should be properly paid. Aged-care jobs should give workers financial independence. Their conditions shouldn't just be tolerable; they should be desirable. Aged-care workers love their residents, our family members; they just want to care for people. But providers depend on that compassion, and some of them exploit it. Love doesn't pay the rent.

I recently spoke to another aged-care worker who works for a major home-care provider. Her workday starts at 6 am and finishes at 10 pm. She is expected to pay for her own work travel costs because her boss refuses to pay. She doesn't get paid for travel time, but can be expected to drive up to an hour to see a client. She's not paid for that time spent on the road. And when she clocks off, she goes back to her office to do paperwork. And possibly the biggest kick in the guts is that she has a minimum of 15 contact hours per week. How can anyone expect to pay their bills based on 15 hours of work per week? When I asked her what she thought of this Morrison government federal budget response, she said, 'Too little, too late.' The budget increased care hours, but we have to wait over two years for care hours to come in. We can't wait that long. The sector is in crisis now, and 'crisis' means it's a problem that needs to be fixed now, not in two years time.

Aged care is a bigger employer than mining in Australia. When we put aged care in with health, disability and social services, it is the biggest employing sector in Australia without question. It is only going to get bigger. The Productivity Commission has told us that we need roughly 7,000 more aged-care workers in the sector in the next 30 years. We need to properly invest in the aged-care workforce now, because our reliance on these workers is only going to grow as our population continues to age.

We have three days left of parliament before we begin the winter break and go back to our electorates to work in our communities. I challenge the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasurer to use this time to reflect on their priorities and to create a real plan to actually fix this mess.