QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:51): It's fascinating to see members of the government rewriting history in respect of this matter. Senator O'Neill made reference to the royal commission. I think we all should acknowledge that was an extremely difficult time.
Clearly there were a lot of problems with the aged-care system, and the government of the day had the courage to actually call a royal commission to properly have a look at the system and the way that it was working. It tabled its final report in March 2021, and the then government responded in the budget in May of that year with $17.1 billion of additional funding for the aged-care system, including about $7.2 billion into the home-care system.
The problem that we have right now, with the way that the home-care system is working, is that the failures that we are seeing in the system are of this government's making. In 2019 there were 128,000 people on the waiting list for a home-care package, and the waiting time was way too long. It was well over 12 months—in some cases, two years—for a level 4 package.
By September of 2022, 100,000 people had been taken off that waiting list; it was down to 28,000 people. Those stats are from the department's system. The waiting time for a package at any level was 30 to 90 days.
If you'd been assessed as having high-level needs, it was less than 30 days. Those are the actual numbers that this government desperately doesn't want to acknowledge. When the new system was brought in, that number just skyrocketed.
There have been more than 150,000 people waiting for a home-care package in the last 12 months alone. Tragically—we suffered this when we were in government—in the last 12 months, alone, 5,000 people have died waiting for their home-care package. I agree with Senator O'Neill: none of us want to see that.
All of this is of the government's making. So what did have they done about it? They've rejected a bill that was passed by this chamber to put human decision-making over the top of the assessment tool.
The government rejected it. It pushed back on that. Experts like Professor Kathy Eagar AM said that the assessment tool is fundamentally and completely flawed—yet this government clings to it.
They say it was tested. It wasn't tested publicly. What are senior Australians to think?
This is the government that has also cut the private health insurance rebate for senior Australians. Effectively, if you're a full pensioner, it is a $5-a-week cut in your pension. If you're a couple, it is a $15-a-week cut in your pension.
That is the action of this government. Why is it that senior Australians are concerned about attitudes towards them with respect to this? The royal commission said—and I'll go back to the point that Senator O'Neill made, and I acknowledge the work of the royal commission and their 148 recommendations—in respect of the home-care system that it was a cruel lottery and that this cruel lottery must end.
The government promised to put the 'care' back into 'home care'. The only thing they've put back is the waiting list and the waiting times.