Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Ms SCRYMGOUR (Lingiari) (11:30): I rise today to speak about this important piece of legislation. Does the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026 fix all of the problems we have in aged care? No, it doesn't.

But it does go some way, and it is testament to our government's commitment to our First Nation communities. It also recognises the contribution our old people have made to this country. The aged-care system, as a key part of our national fabric, is also critical.

Hundreds of thousands of families and individuals rely on this system to help them care for our old people. This system is not always perfect. My view is that, as a country and as a community, we do enough to look after our elders.

Part of this is a stressed system which can at times be complicated to navigate. Another key part of this is that the role of families in looking after our old people is under immense pressure. It is too simplistic to say that people just don't care about our elders.

I don't believe that that is the case. The trouble is that all of our households have huge amounts to contend with: you need to work, you need to shop, you need to cook and clean. If you have children, you have double the workload, adding child care, school drop-offs, sports and bedtime routines.

Our families nowadays have limited space and time to properly care for our elders. This is not an abdication of responsibility. Sometimes you just have to make the time, but it is a recognition of the fact that life is busy and difficult.

As our older population has grown and families' capacity to care for people full-time has decreased, over the last decade we've had to create an aged-care system that is extensive, accessible and high quality. As I said, this aged-care system is now a critical and essential piece of our social fabric. It is something we all rely on and something that most of us need to start focusing on as we start getting older.

But access to aged care is not always universal. Some people find it easier to access aged care than others. Wealth, remoteness, language barriers and family support are all factors in the ease by which someone can navigate the aged-care system.

We cannot avoid the fact that another factor in access to aged care is your race—specifically your Aboriginality. As of 2024, there were 197,000 people in residential aged care. Of this number, only 2,300 were Aboriginal, which constitutes 1.2 per cent.

These statistics are obviously nuanced. First Nations people have a much lower life expectancy. We will die almost eight years younger than the average Australian.

Of course this means fewer of us in residential aged care. In the Northern Territory and in my electorate of Lingiari, remoteness certainly plays a factor in low numbers of people in residential aged care. I recognise also that we are a small part of the population.

We are also more likely to be looked after by our families. Yet there is no doubt that there are structural barriers for First Nations people that exist. We are far less likely to access aged-care services than non-Aboriginal people.

This is what this piece of legislation seeks to address. It is about creating a more inclusive and accessible aged-care system for First Nations people. The creation of the statutory Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner within the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will be an important focus point for culturally safe care.

This cultural safety is critical. In an era of hyperpoliticisation around culture and wokeism, what people forget is that tailored care for people of different backgrounds is a basic right. I know how hard our aged-care staff work.

They do all they can to help people and keep them comfortable in their old age. Yet many staff may not be aware of different cultural protocols that relate to caring for First Nations old people. This is not their fault, but it is the obligation of the whole sector to get informed.

Part of this cultural safety is that there are some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who carry significant trauma. When I think of our old people, I know there are many survivors and descendants of survivors of the stolen generation. The care they need looks different to the care others might receive—and it needs to.

I recently met with the Healing Foundation to talk about their work in this space and the growing stories of trauma relating to the stolen generation, which is unfinished business for this parliament. As I said in my first speech, it is this institution, the Commonwealth of Australia, which sanctioned the removal of children from their families. Our obligation to act to redress this trauma is unavoidable.

The Healing Foundation presented to me the From sorry to action report, a comprehensive road map on works that this government and this parliament must undertake. One of these works is culturally safe and informed aged care, which I am pleased to see us moving on. Next year we will gather to pay tribute to the survivors of the stolen generation, and I hope that we can all see substantial action.

I recognise the work of the interim First Nations aged-care commissioner, Andrea Kelly. She has undertaken comprehensive and wide-ranging consultations to help inform this legislation. It helps that Andrea is a local Arrernte woman from Central Australia.

This permanence of this statutory office is an important step. The other, more technical amendments to the Aged Care Act enshrined in this legislation are also very important in making sure there is broader reform to how First Nations people access aged care. In my electorate of Lingiari, there are many aged-care centres who do incredible work under the most difficult circumstances and conditions.

In Maningrida, 38 Mala'la staff in the aged-care team work every day to look after our old people. The 10-bed residential aged-care service makes sure people have access to the 24-hour care they need, and, also, that it is an environment that is safe and comfortable. Having the Maningrida facility means that people get to remain close to their families; they don't have to move to Darwin.

They are close to their country, and if they choose to die on country they are there in Maningrida; that is important. We know that removal of these old people away from their country impacts on their health and their wellbeing. Delivering aged care anywhere in the country is difficult work, but doing it in such a remote community like Maningrida, Wadeye, Galiwinku, Ramingining—right throughout my electorate, I see remote communities and all the difficulties they are facing in terms of workforce but also looking after old people.

In 2025, then minister for aged care Anika Wells and I announced an additional $12.8 million in funding for the Maningrida facility. This was the first time in nearly 15 years that that aged-care facility was given any upgrades or funding to try and look at putting in an additional four rooms, kitchen facilities, an upgraded laundry and storage areas and outdoor improvements, including extensions to shaded areas and new sensory dementia gardens.

We are seeing dementia increasing, particularly in some of our remote communities and amongst our old elders. This facility is beautiful and is exactly the type of place that our remote communities deserve. Another aged-care facility doing great work is over in Nhulunbuy, East Arnhem. 'Yutjuwala Djiwarr' means 'little heaven', and this facility is exactly that.

It is a culturally designed and locally informed facility which seamlessly fits the landscape. I visited this facility two weeks ago as well as the Purple House dialysis unit, which is co-located on the site. Our old people have given so much to our communities and our country, and they deserve to be cared and looked after with respect.

I am eager to work with the new office of the commissioner on how we can further improve remote aged care. We have come a long way under this government, but I believe we still have more to do. I thank Minister Rae for his work on this legislation as well as his commitment to First Nations aged care.

For so many families in the bush and in my electorate, knowing that their old people can have access to safe and high-quality care is a great relief. The aged-care system is by no means perfect. When I look at the aged-care facilities in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek or Katherine, they're still a long way from being perfect.

I've started having pop-ups and going there on a regular basis to sit down with the old people and also their families to get feedback on the level of care that they are receiving in those aged-care systems, and it is far from perfect. We do need to look after our elders because, as I said earlier in my speech, we are all heading down that road. We're all getting older, so we want to make sure that the system can look after us.

By the time I decide to go into that system, I want to make sure that the system is going to be fixed. Our old people, our elders, deserve nothing more. They do deserve our full attention, and we must continue working to strengthen it, to make it fairer, to make it more accessible and to make sure that, regardless of your cultural background, you're looked after.

Nearly 30 per cent of the population of Alice Springs is made up of the multicultural community. These are people who have come from overseas and have made Alice Springs their home. I've sat there and shared tears with them.

When I look at what I'd expect my mum and dad's level of care to, if they were alive, I think that this should be the standard. Even for the multicultural community whose voices often aren't heard amongst people, we need to make sure that they're looked after and that we give them the care, the love and the support that we expect our old people in the remote communities are to go through.

So, as I keep saying to them, I don't care what their backgrounds are. I think that they deserve to be looked after and they should be looked after. When Minister Rae brought this legislation forward and we started talking about the reforms that we're doing—I have to give a plug to Natasha McCormack, a young First Nations lady from Alice Springs who was on the ministerial council advising the minister in terms of aged care going forward for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I think she's doing a fantastic job working with Purple House both with aged care and also with old people that are accessing dialysis, because a lot of our old people are on dialysis treatment, and making sure that level of care is holistic and that they're getting the treatment, the support and the care that they all deserve. I commend this bill to the chamber.