MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Dr TRISH COOK (Bullwinkel) (16:08): I feel like the fifth speaker for the affirmative side in a high school debate. Some of the selective points that the opposition has made—look, I'm sure we all want the best for old people. Some of us are even old ourselves. as the member pointed out.
In my electorate of Bullwinkel, over 31,000 residents are over the age of 65. That's 20 per cent of my community, and it's probably the same for you. We all want to provide them with real support to stay safely in their homes and to have dignity when entering the residential aged care system if they do.
Labor is delivering that respectful, dignified aged-care system that older Australians across Bullwinkel and right across Australia truly deserve. That's the area of common ground. I would like to remind the House that I do have firsthand understanding of the physical, the clinical and the emotional realities of aged care and the toll that the decade of neglect in this area under the Liberal and coalition government took on both residents and staff.
As a nurse with decades of experience on the front line, I think I can bear witness to some of the great things we're doing that have really turned things around. The ship is turning, so let's just outline a few things that we've done: a $25 billion landmark public hospital funding agreement; strengthening Medicare; increasing bulk billing; 137 urgent care clinics around Australia, including three that are available to the people of Bullwinkel; cheaper medicines, which cannot be underestimated in the daily cost of living, particularly for people over 65; more medicines on the PBS; free RSV vaccinations; the $7.70 freeze on medication scripts—and that's not even the aged-care system yet, so let's get to the aged-care system.
We're reforming the aged-care system, the home care support and the residential aged-care system. We've introduced the integrated assessment tool, which has reduced waitlists, with median assessment times of 10 months now down to one month. That's huge.
That's huge for somebody that's got a package and needs that. That's providing a fairer system. In the aged-care system, we're also looking after the staff.
We've legislated to make registered nurses 24/7 in aged-care nursing homes. That's $18 billion in wage boosts. We're improving the wages paid to nurses.
We've given five consecutive wage increases. For a registered nurse, like me, working in aged care, that's $36,000 extra a year that that we're delivering, and for enrolled nurses it's $32,000. We're going to retain the staff to provide continuity of care, better care and dignified care in those aged-care settings.
I also want to give a shout-out to Minister Butler and Minister Rae in aged care. They listened to us when we told them that the integrated assessment tool and the prioritising of packages needed tweaking. They listened and they changed it.
I visited Barry in his home, who's since passed away, unfortunately, from motor neurone disease. They listened, and they changed the aged-care rules regarding urgent priority care so that people with MND both over and under the age of 65 will now be considered the same and have priority for at-home support packages. These are brilliant things for aged care.
Yes, we are cutting down the rebate they're getting, so they're getting a 24 per cent supplement on private health care, the same as young people. It's the same for all of us. If you're in similar income streams, why should a younger person have to pay more for private health insurance than an older person?
In fact, I'm sure that young people would argue that things are a lot tougher for them now. We have had a balanced approach to aged care and we're providing dignified aged care.