MOTIONS
Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:21): It is urgent that we get a better deal for older Australians and work to bring some humanity back into our aged-care system. I thank my colleague Senator Allman-Payne for seeking to suspend standing orders today to deal with this issue. Labor's continued use of the untested and structurally flawed integrated assessment tool is failing older Australians, and it is urgent because they are running out of time.
The integrated assessment tool was developed to assist practitioners to make clinical judgements about the level of support that aged-care recipients needed. It was supposed to support human decision-making. It was never supposed to become a tick and flick that would let a computer decide whether someone like Audrey Staniland, who we all saw and loved last night on telly, requires no increased support despite being blind and living alone.
On last night's Four Corners we learned how— The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters, I'm going to draw you back to the suspension motion. It's not for substantive debate. Senator WATERS: This matter is urgent, because, as Four Corners revealed last night, this is exactly how this tool is used, and it's the outcomes for older Australians like Audrey that are both devastating and urgent.
This is precisely the sort of issue that this chamber should be fixing on an urgent basis. With no additional support, Audrey and her family are worried that she'll have to leave her home and move into residential aged care instead. And we know how that ends: tragically.
Even getting an assessment from this terrible tool comes with a wait time— The PRESIDENT: Once again, Senator Waters, you are talking about the substantive motion and not the reason that we need to suspend. Senator WATERS: I think that people's lives matter and that this is urgent for older Australians. It is urgent for us and it should be a matter that this chamber is debating.
Instead, they've got a median wait time of 36 days to even get an assessment from this terrible tool. This is urgent because there are 98,606 Australians waiting to be assessed and hoping for support that will allow them to stay at home longer, with or close to their loved ones, rather than being forced into residential aged care. What's particularly galling and what also makes this matter urgent is that at-home care is not only what most older Australians prefer; it costs less.
On average, the cost to subsidise a person in resi aged care is more than $117,000 while care at home is about $30,000. I'm sure, President, you would agree that judicious use of public money to support people is a question that is both important and urgent. In its drive to save money off the backs of everyday Australians, rather than making big corporations pay their fair share, Labor has streamlined decisions— The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters, you are well off topic.
It is about why you need to suspend standing orders. Senator WATERS: We should suspend standing orders, because algorithms and machines should not be in charge of the fate of older Australians. Human beings should be.
I've just laid out that it's actually cheaper and more humane to do that. Instead, we've seen Labor partly privatise the assessment system, as well as employing the robots to make decisions, which they were never designed to do. They handed contracts for more than $1½ billion— The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters—on the suspension motion.
Senator WATERS: I think older Australians think this matter is urgent, and I think it will not reflect well on this chamber that the government of the day is asserting that it is not, and I will continue to assert that this is both urgent and important. This could be fixed today. It's exactly why my colleague Senator Allman-Payne has put this motion.
It is exactly why it is urgent to debate this motion. These are people's lives that are at stake, and this chamber could fix this today, and, instead, the government is choosing not to. It's likely about to vote against this motion to provide older people with the dignity and support that the Greens think that they urgently need.
Have you learnt nothing from robodebt and from the devastating human toll of that inhumane policy? The urgency goes to what the values of this place are, and it's about whether we value human beings and whether we're prepared to invest in the security and the dignity of older Australians or whether this government will continue to do favours for the likes of Donald Trump and fossil fuel companies and the gambling companies and leave Australians tossed aside— The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters, the suspension motion is what you need to be talking about.
Senator WATERS: saying that they are not urgent. It's more urgent for this government to do favours to the gambling companies. It's more urgent for them to do favours to Donald Trump.
Where is your sense of priority here? Imagine if we actually properly funded at-home-care packages. Imagine if we actually treated older Australians with the dignity that they deserve.
Imagine if this chamber didn't have to debate whether that was urgent and important and if we just got on with doing the job of working for Australians. Imagine that! That's what the Greens are working for.
I'm proud my colleague has pushed for this, and I strongly support this.