Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I suggest you just be quiet and I will give you the rest of the answer!

A 20 per cent increase to the viability supplement will be provided to improve the capacity of over 950 services in regional, rural and remote areas to provide quality aged-care services. All services currently receiving the viability supplement will receive this increase.

Thirdly, additional payments will also be made to providers who committed to wage increases under the previous workforce supplement and who are financially disadvantaged by the re-purposing of this funding and, fourthly, for funding already paid for the workforce supplement in 2013-14 through the transitional arrangements. The government will also roll the conditional adjusted payment paid in residential care into basic care subsidies, including Aged Care Funding Instrument care subsidies. Providers will continue to receive the 8.75 per cent as part of the basic subsidy but will no longer need to complete the annual declaration or annual staff training statements.

We will strengthen and expand the positive aspects of the cap by ensuring that all providers in programs that will receive the 2.4 per cent funding increase will now participate in the National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey, which occurs every three to four years. And from 2015-16, financial reporting and programs receiving the 2.4 per cent funding increase will be reviewed and, where relevant, strengthened based on advice from the Aged Care Financing Authority. For 2014-15, providers will be still be required to provide financial statements as per current arrangements.

As to the workforce requirements, this government is well and truly aware of the workforce requirements. The basic foundation of this budget is one which actually recognises the ageing of the population in Australia. It recognises the ageing of the population in Australia, and that is going to have a very significant impact on this country. Not only are there going to be larger numbers of older Australians, largely more dependent than those who are in the workforce, there is also going to be a shrinkage of the growth of the workforce in the future. If you look at the major measures in this portfolio, for example, the measures to take the pension age up to 67 by 2023—which I admit the Labor Party was moving to—and to continue that trajectory to 70 by 2035 is a recognition of the ageing of the population.

When the age pension was set in place in this country over a century ago —and there were questions about this earlier—average life expectancy was less than 60. As I recall, it was about 55 for men and about 59 for women. So this is recognition, if you like, of the major demographic shift—the seismic shift in the demography of this country—which will occur over the next 10 or 15 years. That is why we are doing things as we are in relation to the age-pension age in this country.

It is, equally, why we are saying to people under 30 that 'we expect you to earn or learn'. If you do not meet the exemptions, which means you are not a full-time parent, or you are incapable of working for 30 hours or more a week, or you are in training or in a range of other exemptions—in other words, if you are capable of working full-time—then we expect that you are in a job. But if you are not in a job and you are under 30, and you are not within the exemptions, then because of this demographic shift our expectation is that you should be in training to get the job that you can have in the future because we will need every worker we can find in the future. So far as the aged-care workforce is concerned, that is something which is continuing to be monitored by the expert advisory committee, which advises Minister Fifield in that regard.

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