PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls) (13:12): I rise to support this motion from the member for Cowper. It's not a political attack. It's not a motion that should be condemned.
It is us doing what we need to do in this place, which is give a voice to those who are voiceless and who are telling us a system is not working and telling us to put pressure on the government to get it working. I urge those opposite to do the same thing. Camp outside the minister's office if you need to.
The system is clearly not working for Australians, and it needs to. Across Australia, families are telling the same story. Our aged-care system is no longer providing care.
It is providing delays, bureaucracy and despair, and it is getting worse. I flagged this speech ahead of time, and I'd already received a lot of correspondence in relation to this, but, when I flagged that I was going to speak on this today, I was swamped with emails and messages, and they paint a remarkably consistent picture. People feel the aged-care system is no longer delivering timely care but is instead creating delays, confusion, stress and financial hardship.
The overwhelming sentiment is one of frustration, fear and disappointment. We're not trying to ramp that up. It's what we're hearing from our constituents, and everyone in this parliament should be working hard to make sure that the system improves.
Older Australians are not receiving the care they need. They are being assessed, reassessed, placed on waiting lists and left to struggle while their health deteriorates. One aged-care worker described elderly Australians waiting months for basic items like shower chairs, toilet seat raisers and personal alarms because they require additional assessments and approvals.
Another reported older people being denied recommended clinical services because an AI system—an artificial intelligence system—decided they did not qualify. In some cases, assessors recognised the decision was wrong but had no power to override it. A young woman caring for her husband with advanced dementia waited six months simply for a reassessment, only to be told it could take a further 11 months before funding became available.
Unable to cope any longer, she was forced to send him to hospital, where he remains occupying a bed because no suitable aged-care placement exists. A spinal injury patient assessed at the highest level of need is ready to leave hospital yet cannot return home because the funding required for his care will not arrive for months. His family is paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for modifications that the system should be supporting.
Many Australians are also shocked at dramatic fee increases under Support at Home. Families describe service costs increasing by 40 per cent or more, mowing fees doubling, nursing costs escalating and savings painstakingly accumulated under previous arrangements rapidly disappearing. Yet transparency remains elusive, with providers unable or unwilling to explain where the money is going.
Regional Australians face even greater challenges. In many places, including my electorate of Nicholls, approved services simply do not exist. People are receiving referral codes but cannot find providers with capacity.
OTs, allied health professionals and support workers are in short supply. The human toll of this is really troubling. The elderly spouse is exhausted, the adult children overwhelmed and the carers burnt out.
It's just not good enough. We owe elderly Australians a whole lot better than they're getting at the moment. One affected family member told me: I am staggered at the shemozzle involved in trying to help and care for our aged.
This motion says it is time for the government and the aged care minister to increase the number of packages and reduce waiting times for assessments and approvals. It is time to implement oversight, clinical input and a review mechanism in the integrated assessment tool. It is beyond time that this government treated older Australians with the dignity and respect that they deserve.
I really wondered what I was going to hear from the government speakers on this bill. What I would like to hear is a serious acknowledgement of the problem and the fact that this is not working. The members in Labor seats must be getting the same emails of absolute frustration that I'm getting.
Pressure needs to be brought to bear on the minister to significantly improve this system and make sure it is delivering, because these older Australians shouldn't have to wait and shouldn't have to go through the bureaucracy of the assessments that they're going through to get the care that they deserve.