Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026
Mr FARLEY (Farrer) (12:11): I rise with caution and concern in support of the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026, but my support is conditional upon a broader principle of equal dignity being applied across Australia's aged-care system. I support the principle that elderly Australians deserve care and understanding of their culture, language, history, family and identity, but if this parliament is to accept that principle for one group of Australians, then we must be prepared to apply that principle more broadly.
I therefore call upon this government to establish a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function for culturally and linguistically diverse Australians. This should not replace or diminish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner; it should stand alongside it. The demographic case is compelling.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians number approximately 984,000, representing 3.8 per cent of Australia's population in the data before us. Their circumstances are distinctive. The Indigenous population is considerably younger, with a median age of approximately 24 years, compared with 39 years for non-Indigenous Australians.
There are particular health, geographic, historical and cultural circumstances affecting Indigenous Australians that deserve attention. I acknowledge that and I support addressing that, but Australia has changed enormously. By June 2025, approximately 8.8 million Australians—32 per cent of our population—were born overseas.
That's almost one in three. Around 971,000 Australians were born in India, around 732,000 were born in China and almost 400,000 were born in the Philippines. Then there are the generations of Australians who came from Italy, Greece, Vietnam, Lebanon, Croatia, Serbia, Germany, the Netherlands and many other nations.
These are not temporary residents of our national story; they are Australians. They built businesses. They worked our farms and our factories.
They fought in our wars. They built homes and infrastructure. They staffed hospitals and raised families.
They paid taxes. They helped build modern Australia. Now most of them are ageing.
That presents this parliament with a question we cannot avoid: if cultural understanding is important to the quality of aged care, and this legislation says that it is, why would that principle cease to apply because an elderly Australian happens to be born in Greece, Italy, Vietnam, China, India or the Philippines? An 85-year-old Australian Greek living with dementia may revert predominantly to speaking Greek.
An elderly Italian Australian may depend heavily upon family for food, faith and family traditions. A Chinese, Vietnamese or an Indian Australian may encounter profound language or cultural barriers when entering residential aged care. Their citizenship is equal.
Their dignity is equal. Their vulnerability in aged care is equal. That is why I'm proposing a practical addition to the government's aged-care architecture: establish in statute a multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function.
Give that function a clear mandate to represent culturally and linguistically diverse Australians within the aged-care system. Give it responsibility to identify systematic barriers involving language, culture and religious observation. Give it the capacity to advise government and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner.
Require it to examine whether aged-care providers are meeting cultural and linguistic needs of the Australians entrusted to their care. Importantly, give elderly Australians and their families somewhere to turn to when the system does not understand them. This is not an argument against the bill.
It's an argument to complete its logic. If cultural safety is important, which it is, and if language matters, which it does, and if maintaining identity contributes to the dignity in old age, then that dignity belongs to every Australian citizen. And the need will only grow.
Australia's population is changing. In the decade to 2025, the Indian population increased by more than half a million people. Chinese, Filipino and Nepalese communities have all grown substantially.
Those Australians will grow old. The aged-care system we designed today must be capable of serving the Australia of 2040, 2050 and beyond. Equally, this does not mean pretending everyone has identical needs.
Different circumstances require different services, but equal citizenship requires that the government apply its fundamental principles consistently. I'm not asking the government to remove the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner. I'm asking that the government to broaden its vision in establishing the Indigenous commissioners contemplated in this bill and establish alongside that office a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy commissioner function for culturally and linguistically diverse Australians.
Let both advocate for Australians whose cultural circumstances can make navigating aged care more difficult. Let both identify the failures, let both advise government and let both contribute to an aged-care system built around the individual rather than bureaucracy. We would be very careful about creating a statutory right and representation that appears to establish different levels of recognition among Australian citizens.
We can recognise particular disadvantages without creating a hierarchy of dignity. One citizenship does not mean one culture. Australia's strength is that people from hundreds of cultural backgrounds have built one nation together, and when those Australians become old, frail and dependent upon others, this parliament has an obligation to ensure the system remembers who they are.
My position on this legislation is clear. I support the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner. I call upon the government to establish in parallel a statutory multicultural aged-care advocacy or commissioner function representing culturally and linguistically diverse Australians, not instead of but alongside.
Cultural dignity should not depend on where an Australian or their ancestors were born—one standard of dignity, equal access, equal access to advocacy, equal respect of culture and an aged-care system that serves every Australian. On that basis, I support the bill.