PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (13:07): Referencing the contribution from the previous speaker, it is heartbreaking to hear those stories. As local members, we all hear those stories. It shouldn't happen.
This government has a commitment to review how the system prioritises people, so it's not as if this is just set-and-forget by any means. I also noticed the contribution there said that these reforms were introduced quietly in November last year. They were supported by the coalition back in 2024, so I don't think there's been anything quiet about it.
I don't think there's been any lack of consultation. I think that fundamentally there has been a commitment across the parliament to make this work, and that is because of the sheer scale of the issue that is confronting us. I heard the health minister the other day mention that in Australia we need to build a new residential aged-care facility every three days for the next 20 years in order to meet demand—every three days for the next 20 years!
He also made the point that that back in around 2011, 15,000 Australians turned 90. Next year, 90,000 Australians will turn 90. The need for the Support at Home program and aged-care support is on an utterly unprecedented scale.
If the opposition want to start pointing fingers, I think they need to take a hard look at the mess that they left this government back in 2022. As somebody who's been working in the community for a long time, the stories that the former speaker mentioned are not new. They're not some things which have just emerged over the last few years.
We've got to get this right. I know that, across the parliament, we all want to get this right for a generation that has built this country. I think that scoring political points to do that is really unhelpful.
The motion collects a few really misguided grievances and bundles them all into a political attack. I'd just like to say that, as local members, we all work with people in our community. There's a couple that I work particularly closely with, Heather and Allen, who are residents in Forde.
Allen's got dementia. If it weren't for Heather being such a strong advocate for Allen as he navigates the healthcare system, he wouldn't get the help he needs. Working at that grassroots level with people, like Heather and Allen, is about identifying the problems and fixing these problems.
As I said, this government has not just got a 'set and forget' attitude to these changes. In fact, that probably is best exemplified by the fact that, where the agreement had been to put showering and continence care and some wound care in that middle category which attracted a co-payment, the decision by the government was to shift that into clinical care, where people will get those really quite essential services for free from October.
That was a decision only taken as part of this budget. There are many reforms which this government is obviously considering as part of this continuous improvement to this essential program. I'd just like to finish off on talking about the Integrated Assessment Tool, because I think it's important to really get that message out into the community that this is essentially—in fact, I sat through an assessment the other day of a constituent who had sought my assistance.
I sat there as this really quite expert clinical practitioner went through an extensive set of questions to determine what the actual needs of the person having the assessment done were. This person was an expert, a human being—it shouldn't need saying. Let's just look at what this integrated assessment tool was actually designed to fix.
Prior to it coming into place, something like $4 billion in unspent funds sat in people's plans because they had been categorised as needing more care than they could spend. I condemn the motion. I urge people to vote against it and to support the work of this government.
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