PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (11:26): The first thing I'd say to the member for Casey is that all of us, as local members, hear stories from constituents about what's happening in aged care. It is truly heartbreaking to hear of what people are battling in a time where they are at their most vulnerable. I know that the Minister for Aged Care has asked for those sorts of stories to go to him directly, because we want to do what we can to help people.

So I encourage the member for Casey to send that through. But let's remember. When we look at the motion that he's moved saying that the My Aged Care system is broken, I think it just shows a spectacular lack of self-reflection to call this a broken aged care system when the very system which the now opposition presided over was summed up in a report by the royal commission called Neglect.

And so, with all of the difficulties that exist in the system today, they really do pale in comparison to the sort of problems that I've been dealing with over the years with people in the community—people that really should have been treated a lot better. I also remind the member for Casey that the system that we have in place now was a system negotiated in good faith with the opposition and supported by the opposition.

So, when the opposition criticises this system, they are actually criticising a system which they have supported but are now using as an opportunity to politicise for their own personal reasons. There are also gross misrepresentations going on around there. They managed to put it in writing in their motion about median wait times.

But, if you actually look at the median wait times now, you see that, for the standard priority, it's now down to seven or eight months 10 to 11 months as it was just in November last year. Again, I know from personal experience—I was elected only last year, but I've been working in the community for a long time—that sometimes it would take people up to a year just to get an assessment, let alone actually get approved for a package and end up on the waiting list.

And now those assessment times have come down to around a month or below. And so I think that what we have seen is that we were given a broken system, we worked with the opposition to try to fix this broken system and now we've got an opposition that wants to politicise it even though we are clearly making gains, even though we are clearly seeing the wait times down for packages and the wait times really coming down for assessment.

The government doesn't pretend this system is perfect; in fact, we've said that we are open to change. Just recently, we made a massively significant change in—I'm going to forget the categories, but I think it's these—independent living, where showering, continence care and wound management attracted a co-payment for people newly coming onto the to the Support at Home program.

We listened to the community, and we moved that into clinical care, where people can get those essential services without having to attract a co-payment. I can't think of any clearer example than that to show the government's willingness to listen and to make changes. I'd encourage the opposition: rather than making those political points in here and using an individual's plight to score some cheap point, continue to work with the government, continue to improve the system and continue to advocate for the individuals that we all come across as local members.

I just finish up by saying that I think there needs to be some comprehension of the scale of the problem, which gets lost in all of this. These figures aren't exact, of course, but something like 15,000 Australians turned 80 in 2011. Next year, 90,000 Australians are turning 80.

We have to build a new residential aged-care facility every three days in Australia for the next 20 years to meet the demand that's out there. I think the scale of this problem is reflected in the willingness of the government to invest $47 billion this year, to listen, to make the changes and to give people the care that they have thoroughly deserved and worked hard for.