Additional Comments - Senator David Pocock

1.1I thank the Committee for the opportunity to make some brief additional comments in relation to the Aged Care Bill 2024.

1.2Over the past month, I have been speaking with people in the ACT about the changes proposed by this Bill and, more broadly, what they want to see from the aged care system in the decades ahead.

1.3The feedback I have received has been generally positive. In a survey I ran at the COTA ACT Seniors Expo, 78% agreed that people should contribute more to aged care if they could afford it.

1.4This was reflected at a community Town Hall I held at the Hughes Community Centre last week, where an overwhelming majority of senior Canberrans told me they were comfortable with contributing more if it improved services and ensured that seniors could receive the care they needed.

1.5This reflects the generous nature of Canberrans, who overwhelmingly want to ensure that senior Australians are treated with dignity and respect and can maintain choice and independence as they grow older.

1.6While generally supportive of the aims of the Government’s proposed reforms, significant concerns have been raised with me that I wish to share in these comments.

There will be times when older Australians may no longer be able to afford their aged care services. This is inevitable. There must be strong protections available to Australians during these times, as reducing or stopping services could endanger lives and would not be in anyone’s best interests. I am concerned that the current protections around hardship are poorly defined in the Bill. While I understand these matters may be more thoroughly outlined in the Rules, I will be seeking greater clarity on what protections will be available to senior Australians in times of hardship.

Currently, there are protections in place to ensure that providers take on residents who have low financial means (supported residents). There is currently a financial incentive if 40% of residents in a facility are supported residents, and there is also a mandatory floor by geographical region that can obligate providers to accept a certain proportion of supported residents. I am concerned that neither of these features appear in the current Bill. We cannot have a system where people who have lived in an area all their life cannot access aged care in that area because they cannot afford it. We cannot have a situation where there are regions in which people with lower means cannot access aged care. If the sector is going to receive Commonwealth funding, then I believe there should be obligations on the sector to provide for all Australians, no matter their means.

I welcome the commitment to lower waiting times for home care packages to three months by 2027. However, I’m concerned that this commitment represents only one part of the home care package journey, and that senior Australians could still be left waiting far too long to get access to essential support at home. Through this process, and at previous sessions of Senate Estimates, I have learned that ACT residents have been left waiting, in some cases, up to a year for an aged care assessment. Assessments are an essential component of receiving a home care package. The time spent waiting for and receiving an assessment should be included in this commitment, and there should be transparency around how long this process is taking around the country.

There are concerns about the suitability of the penalties outlined in the Bill. Criminal penalties have been removed, but people would like to understand whether the remaining civil penalties are commensurate with other areas of the care sector and whether they will be sufficient to change behaviour in the aged care sector.

I’m concerned that significant features of the new laws have been left to delegated legislation. In particular, I’m concerned that the 2% of the refundable accommodation deposits that can be retained by providers does not appear in the Bill. I am also concerned that the percentage amounts that people will need to co-contribute to services in their home care packages are also not outlined in the Bill. It should not be up to a future Government to change these significant features via regulation, given the very significant financial impact this would have on seniors. Any changes to these thresholds would be significant, and they should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny through the passage of amendments to the primary legislation.

While welcoming the comprehensive Statement of Rights, Canberrans have told me they are concerned about its enforceability, including how any complaints would be mediated and resolved by the new Complaints Commissioner. This needs to be explicit in the legislation to give assurance that these are not just words on paper but will translate into rights for senior Australians and their families.

The changes will increase the revenue providers receive for accommodation. However, there are no conditions in the Bill that would obligate providers to spend that funding on accommodation, and my concern is that this additional revenue could end up subsiding directors fees rather than being used to refurbish and improve facilities. As a broad principle, I believe funding that is given for a purpose should be spent on that purpose and this should be made clear in the legislation.

Many people have told me how excited they are to see that the Statement of Rights gives individuals the right to remain connected to their pets in the aged care system. However, despite this being a new right, there doesn’t appear to actually be any support for people to remain connected to their pet. In the draft Services List, it seems the Government intends for there to be no services supported through the aged care system that would allow people to keep their pet at home.

1.7Finally, many people tell me that they continue to be disappointed that the Government has not sufficiently responded to Recommendation 72 of the Aged Care Royal Commission, which said that: ‘By 1 July 2024, every person receiving aged care who is living with disability, regardless of when acquired, should receive through the aged care program daily living supports and outcomes (including assistive technologies, aids and equipment) equivalent to those that would be available under the National Disability Insurance Scheme to a person under the age of 65 years with the same or substantially similar conditions’.

1.8While there are changes in the Bill that would provide senior Australians with more support to manage a disability, it is not comparable to what someone would receive through the NDIS. In fact, I believe it falls far short of that and it particularly affects Australians with spinal cord injuries and acquired brain injuries.

1.9Many Australians may not realise that if you acquire a spinal cord injury after the age of 65, you will be eligible for less support than if you had acquired that injury before the age of 65. According to Spinal Cord Injuries Australia, the average payment for a participant of the NDIS with an injury was $150,600 in 2022/23. Under this Bill, the maximum amount of support a person will be able to receive through a home care package is roughly that. It is not enough funding for a person to receive the care they need to remain at home.

1.10I look forward to working with the Government, Opposition and crossbench on this Bill in the weeks ahead and ensure sensible amendments are adopted by the Senate.

Senator David Pocock