Aged Care Bill 2024

It’s always a privilege to talk in the chamber about aged care, our older Australians and the care that they are given. Of course, I have many, many providers in my electorate of Moncrieff on the Gold Coast, and I do enjoy regularly visiting those residential care homes. I always look forward to chatting with the elderly residents about their concerns, and I look forward to doing that next week when I visit a few in the Nerang area of my electorate. Whilst we’re talking about aged care, we’re also discussing in-home care.

But I would like to say hello to those residents across Moncrieff in all of the aged-care facilities, those at Homesteads in Nerang and those in Earl Haven, which has some assisted living units. I’ll be visiting there next week with the state candidate for Gaven, Bianca Stone. She is running for that seat at the state election. She is an incredible person with a great history and will be a remarkable MP, I’m sure, in the next Queensland parliament. I would like to give a shout-out to all of those people. I look forward to meeting you again next week.

We can all recognise the importance, of course, of a strong, dignified and world-class aged-care system that supports all older Australians now and into the future. When I think about the baby boomer generation or even when I think about my grandparents, I think about my grandmother who was in an aged-care home in Adelaide for some years. I visited her a number of times, and I reflect on the care she received from the workers in that environment who cared so deeply about her in her last years. And now, in my own family, my father and my aunts and uncles are getting to that age when they might be looking at getting some in-home care assistance or, certainly, leaning on the services and providers that are around the country.

This is an important area that needs reform, and the coalition has been working closely to try to improve the Aged Care Bill 2024. But, with more than half of aged-care homes across the country currently operating at a loss, an ageing population and a growing desire to age at home, there is definitely a need for that sector reform that I talked about. We need a system that provides dignity and clarity for older Australians. This legislation delivers on the first recommendation of the royal commission appointed by the coalition to implement a new rights based aged-care act. In response to the royal commission, I’ll note that the former coalition government provided more than $18 billion in funding to support the immediate needs of the sector. I recall Minister Hunt, who was the minister at the time, and the fantastic job he did with his four key pillars for the aged-care sector reform and the funding that went along with that. I congratulate him on the previous work that he has done. I also congratulate Senator Ruston, who has done so much work on this particular bill that’s before the House, working with the government to make it a much better bill. While it’s not perfect, it’s much better than it was.

The coalition provided a clear offer to work with the government on sensible aged-care policies because we need a system that’s strong and sustainable to support future generations, and that’s probably my generation. I see the member for Bass is here. Our generation is probably next after our parents, and so this is something that’s so important to a large proportion of our population and their families.

I want to be clear about this package because these are Labor’s reforms. This has not been co-designed by the coalition. So, whilst we have been able to make some changes, we’re still not a hundred per cent on Labor’s package, but the coalition has worked tirelessly to ensure that the government’s reforms are fairer, particularly for Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement. All of our families have worked very hard throughout their lives and paid their taxes, and, in their twilight years, they must be looked after. I want to commend the work, again, of my colleague Senator Ruston for her efforts in negotiating on this bill and making sure that we’re able to fight for the inclusion of grandfathering arrangements to ensure that every Australian who has already commenced their journey of ageing will not be impacted. All of us have commenced that, haven’t we? Nobody is getting any younger day by day, so it’s only a matter of time before a larger proportion of the population have to lean on the aged-care sector for that support and help. But those Australians who have already commenced their journey of ageing within the Commonwealth system will not be impacted by these changes, and I think that’s a really important point—to make sure that there is grandfathering applied to this so that there is certainty across the sector moving forward.

That means that older Australians who are currently in the system, including those on home-care waitlists, will not pay one cent more for their aged-care journey. That delivers certainty where there was known before with this package. A fairer deal for hardworking Australians ensures the inclusion of a much lower taper rate, to ensure equitable contributions for Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement, and ensures that the federal government, not the consumer, will remain the majority funder of aged care. I think that’s also a very important point. As I said, I’ve watched my parents work their whole lives and pay their taxes, and they should be looked after when they’re on the pension—and, particularly, looked after well. It’s so very important that that assurance is there as our population ages.

Many older Australians who have paid their taxes and done the work don’t have the benefit of superannuation either, and I think that’s really important to highlight. So they don’t have that nest egg to lean on in retirement or when they need to go into a home, where they have that support and assistance, or when they need in-home care. So there is certainty for families who have had loved ones in care for many years, as well as the inclusion of a time-limited cap for residential aged care to ensure that older Australians and their families will only be required to contribute to care costs for four years.

The government’s original proposal saw no cap on home care and a $184,000 cap on residential aged care only. We gained the concession that no older Australian will ever pay more than $130,000 for home care and the non-clinical care in residential care combined. These were concessions that Senator Anne Ruston and the coalition were able to negotiate for a better deal for our older Australians. We secured $300 million in additional capital funding through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program for regional, rural and remote aged-care providers to upgrade their facilities, along with additional care funding for regional, rural and remote aged-care homes.

It’s unsurprising that the Labor government included no targeted support for rural, regional and remote aged-care homes in its initial proposal, because regional, remote and rural Australia is not on the government’s mind. The government is chasing the city vote, not the regional vote, and that’s why it wasn’t included in this package—because the Labor government doesn’t care about regional Australians. It’s the Liberal and National parties that care deeply about regional Australia, and that is why we delivered that in this package.

We strongly pushed for the removal of criminal penalties from the bill following serious concerns that their inclusion would force the exit of highly capable staff from the sector, in fear of being criminally punished to a level not seen in any other industry. You should not be going to work in fear of a criminal penalty—unless you have committed a criminal act, of course—so we’ve managed to remove that from the government’s package of bills here. The government wanted aged-care workers and even volunteers to be criminally liable under the new act, so we fought hard for the changes to make sure that Australians who have worked hard all their lives to save for their retirement are dealt a much fairer deal.

The coalition strongly believes the government needs to be talking with older Australians—with the stakeholders—their families and the sector, bringing them to the table and taking them on the journey of aged-care reform, because they are very substantial reforms to the sector. They’ve been excluded from this conversation for far too long. That’s why we fought for an open and transparent Senate committee inquiry which will bring out all the questions and bring the stakeholders to the table to ask the questions they like of the government on what they are doing in terms of reform across the sector, and what implications that has for aged-care facilities, for their residents, for their workers and for their families.

We strongly encourage anyone to participate in this inquiry process, to make sure their views are heard and to make sure the government listens to their views. This is the opportunity, during the Senate inquiry, to do that. We look forward to having an open conversation with older Australians and the aged-care sector through that Senate inquiry process about the government’s proposed reforms, and we welcome Australians putting their views forward and asking the government many questions about the future of aged care in this country.