Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Today the aged-care royal commission has released a statement that 96 per cent of private, for-profit aged-care facilities are failing to deliver the highest quality of care. Why is this seven-year-old government failing to ensure that frail and vulnerable older Australians get the care they deserve?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will ask the Minister for Health to add further to my answer. Whether it is private operators, to which the member has referred, or whether it is non-profit operators, like St Basil's, or whether it is public operators, like Oakden that actually sparked the royal commission, wherever the care needs to be provided then the system needs to support that care in the funding and support delivered by the federal government and the regulation that sits over that, which is our responsibility. That is why we will continue to increase our funding and support, and to learn the lessons that need to be learned and apply them—particularly those that will come from the royal commission.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Adding to the Prime Minister's answer, there are four principal things which this government has done to assist. Firstly, in relation to funding, we have increased funding from just over $13 billion to tracking towards $25.444 billion over the course of the forward estimates. That has allowed for additional home care places, additional support for residential care places and additional investment in aged care overall. Secondly, this Prime Minister became the first prime minister in Australian history, to the best of my knowledge, to call a royal commission. I was standing next to him on the day he announced that royal commission. He warned of the challenges. He warned of the confronting elements. He was first person to have taken those steps, precisely because he wished to shine a light on the challenges which flowed from the Oakden royal commission into public aged care in South Australia, which had lessons for all elements of aged care—public, not-for-profit and private.

In addition to that, we have created the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. That commission has now seen over 620 spot inspections during the course of the pandemic, with 100 in Victoria in the recent two-month period. In particular, as part of that, what we have also seen is the establishment last year, on 1 July, of the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program. That quality indicator program, the likes of which had not existed under any previous government, became compulsory from 1 July last year. It requires that all Commonwealth subsidised residential aged-care services report on quality indicators across three critical areas: pressure injuries; use of physical restraint; and unplanned weight loss—something which is absolutely fundamental. All of those things have come together—the funding, the royal commission, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program—in the fight to protect, preserve and improve standards in quality in aged care.