GRIEVANCE DEBATE

Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (13:04): There is bipartisan understanding in this House that older Australians want to age at home. There is no controversy there. Our view is that basic services such as gardening, lawn mowing and home maintenance can assist that to occur.

But I have a particular grievance about something that I know for a fact is occurring not just in my electorate but across Australia, and, as usual, it is worse in regional Australia. I want to address the total disregard this Labor government has for our ageing population. Once again, they are fabulous with the spin, not so good at the delivery.

On Thursday 30 July I organised a community meeting—a forum—at North Park Hall in Stawell in my electorate because residents in the Grampians Community Health region had received a very concerning letter from the health service. From the very start I want to make it crystal clear that my grievance is not with the health service. They have worked sensibly and constructively with me on what I am about to tell you.

My grievance is with Minister Rae and the Albanese Labor government, who will leave regional Australians dying in their homes. Grampians Community Health wrote to residents across the region that their home maintenance and gardening support services at home would be cut from their current hours of approximately two hours every six weeks. The letter reads: From 1 August 2026, gardening and home maintenance funded by the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) will change.

All GCH CHSP clients will get a maximum 2 hours gardening and home maintenance each financial year. Yes, you heard that correctly—two hours a year. I don't know how long it takes for your lawn to grow and how often your home needs cleaning, but I guarantee you two hours a year just won't work.

It will not cut it. It won't work for you, and it certainly won't work for our elderly. The letter continues: This is due to very high demand but no additional government funding.

We are doing everything we can to access more funding from the Australian Government. The letter goes on to explain that people will have to pay out of pocket for more than their allotted two hours a year. I can hear people as they listen to this saying, 'That is ridiculous,' and they're absolutely right.

It is ridiculous. Copies of this letter started flooding into my inbox when it went out, so I approached Grampians Community Health, and I fully respect the awful situation the Albanese Labor government have put them in. The funding envelope for Grampians Community Health was never adequate.

They were having to retrofit funding streams for respite care with an exemption to meet the existing demand. I understand the government has refused to allow the exemption to continue. Worse still, the government has granted funding to other providers not based in the area, including Kirinari, which is based in Albury-Wodonga.

For those who don't know how far Albury-Wodonga is from Stawell, I invite you to look it up on a map. It is hundreds of kilometres away. The background here is also that Northern Grampians Shire Council, like so many in my electorate and in regional Australia, were, until recently, providing these home support services due to the need in the community but simply couldn't afford to continue.

To their credit, Grampians Community Health had picked up the responsibility. I want to support them in whatever way I can. Sadly, it appears the Albanese Labor government does not want to support them.

I organised the community meeting at Stawell and met with other Grampians Community Health clients who came to see me at my mobile offices in Avoca and Talbot to discuss the situation. There, at the Court House Hotel in Talbot, I met with Lajos Horta, also known as Lou, who is in his 90s. Lou is legally blind.

Lou warmly held my hands and shared his view of the Albanese Labor government. He said: I have lived in this country 70 years and have never seen such incompetence. Lou was referring to the government's inability to provide him the help he needed to stay at home.

He and his partner, Carol, applied 18 months ago for Commonwealth home support. Eighteen months later, they are still waiting and now, sadly, Lou is in palliative care. The Prime Minister, as then leader of the opposition, referred to the aged-care system as a 'national disgrace with unforgivable neglect' when we were in government.

Yet, under his government, wait lists have exceeded 230,000 people—vulnerable people waiting for home support so they can age at home. Sadly, 5,000 people have died while waiting. I do not want Lou adding to those statistics.

Today, we see Labor's own aged-care minister in Western Australia calling out this government's and Minister Rae's failure. Simone McGurk says the scheme 'had not lived up to its promise' and that access to aged-care home services are 'unacceptable'. In Western Australia, the assessment algorithm has been so inflexible, it left a patient with Alzheimer's and their 92-year-old carer waiting for nine months for services to start.

I remind you, Deputy Speaker Payne, that Lou and Carol have been waiting over 18 months already, and now he is in palliative care. This is outrageous. The coalition has moved a private member's bill in the Senate to restore human oversight into the assessment process so that cases like Lou do not happen again.

Labor said it would put the care back into aged care, but despite his spin at the despatch box, Minister Rae is clearly failing in his job to ensure our vulnerable get the care they need and deserve. Just look at the pathetic excuse for a comment on today's story out of Western Australia: When contacted for comment, a government spokesman said the Albanese government had "spent four years repairing the mess the Coalition left behind" and acknowledged "there's more to do".

Yes, you're right. There is more to do. That's all those opposite have got for older Australians: blaming the natural party of government, the coalition.

Labor have been so abysmal in delivery in government that all they've got is to blame the coalition, despite being in government for over four years, and the situation has got worse on their watch. The Labor spokesman goes on: We're bringing down wait times for home care and it's having a material impact for older people … That is patently untrue, and a gutless assertion to be made by the faceless man because the minister yet again can't be bothered turning up.

I'm meeting the minister this sitting fortnight, and I make it clear here as I will to him there in his office that what he is presiding over is a national disgrace and literally, for the likes of Lou and Carol, his excuses to not pass the pub test.