00:00This Act essentially implements everything that's left in the Royal Commission that hasn't
00:06been able to be done yet. So it puts into the new Act the human rights of older people.
00:12The Aged Care Act we deal with at the moment, which dates back to 1997, almost doesn't even
00:16mention older people. It's really out of date. The other thing that it does is it makes us
00:22financially sustainable. We've got 50 per cent of providers losing money on every bed
00:26that they operate, and we're not building anywhere near the number of beds that we need
00:30to have. We need to build about 10,000 beds a year from now on, and we're closing more
00:34beds than we're opening, and this legislation's intended to resolve that. So there's a lot
00:39that it's expected to do, but without it, we really cannot move forward.
00:43What are the main sticking points to agreement?
00:46Well, I actually think that agreement is either reached or almost reached. From what I hear,
00:53the two sides have worked really well in a bipartisan way. I know that's unusual in
00:58this country, and we're not used to hearing it, but we actually think that agreement is
01:01almost there. What we can't understand is why we're not there now. We don't think there
01:07are remaining sticking points, certainly not significant ones, and this negotiation's been
01:12going on between the government and the opposition for five, six months. We don't have much time
01:18left. If they don't introduce it in the first week, sitting week of September, which starts
01:22on the 9th, we will run out of time to pass this legislation before the election, and
01:26then we've got nothing, and then we will have completely betrayed the trust of all the people,
01:30frankly, as a nation.
01:32The government is hoping to achieve bipartisan support. You're saying that agreement is close.
01:38The aim of achieving the bipartisan support is that the eventual act would be more effective,
01:44more successful. It wouldn't change if there was a change in government. Do you think that
01:48agreement is necessary on this, that bipartisan support is necessary?
01:53Absolutely. It's completely critical. Every time we've seen reforms to aged care proposed
01:59in the past, they collapsed at the 11th hour because there wasn't the bipartisan support,
02:05and usually the opposition of the day, whether it was Labor or the coalition, were the ones
02:08that said, no, we're not going to support this. The problem is the reforms that are
02:12being proposed, they will see wealthier Australians pay more for the kinds of services that they've
02:17paid for throughout their lives, food and laundry, not care, and that can be politicised,
02:23massively politicised. The community, when they've heard these proposals, seems to have
02:26responded pretty well, but it's very easy to weaponise, and if we don't have the support
02:32of the coalition and the government, then it will fall in a heap and we'll have no reform
02:37and we'll be stuck in an aged care act that's out of date for another 20 years, and that's
02:41not where any of us want to be.
02:43On who pays for what, just explain to us that key change, because there has been a
02:49bit of controversy over that, as sort of a means-tested user pay system.
02:54Well, the taskforce that the government put together last year that I was a member of,
03:00it looked at a couple of options. One was a tax, which is what the Royal Commission
03:03recommended, but we thought that that was unfair on younger people and also in a cost
03:07of living crisis, just wasn't going to be sustainable, so that was ruled out. What was
03:12left was the option of asking people with wealth to pay more for things like food and
03:17laundry. At the moment, very, very wealthy people pay the same for that food and laundry,
03:22the daily services, as pensioners. You can only be asked to pay 85% of the pension, which
03:29if you've got millions of dollars in super, you have far more than that, and the cost
03:33of those services is much higher than the amount people pay. So we're looking at a model
03:39whereby people who do have wealth are asked to pay a small amount extra for the services
03:44that they're currently receiving and that are currently paid for by the taxpayer. So
03:48it will see wealthier people pay a bit more, but at the moment we're losing money on every
03:53single bed and we're closing beds because we can't simply afford to run them, and that's
03:58not a situation I think anybody wants to be in.
04:01If this is not addressed soon and not within enough time for it to be passed before the
04:05next election, what are the impacts of that, particularly for operators in terms of the
04:10preparation to implement these changes?
04:15Well this piece of legislation will probably run to about 400 pages, so that gives you
04:19some idea of how complicated it will be for a provider to implement it, to even get their
04:24heads across it, even to read it will be quite a challenge. If we do not see it until the
04:2911th hour and it were to be passed very, very close to the deadline date, which is the 1st
04:34of July next year, we would have to see a very long transition. We'll need a transition
04:40anyway, but we want it to be as short as possible because we want to start delivering these
04:44additional services older people need. That's another reason why this has to be in Parliament
04:49as soon as humanly possible so that we can all see it and start getting ready to deliver
04:54it. None of us have even seen what it says at this point.
04:58These reforms are in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care and we saw terrible
05:02stories emerge from that Royal Commission. It's often forgotten in these conversations
05:06I think that we're talking about people's lives, obviously the people who are the residents
05:11who are in care, their families, the staff who work at these places as well. And the
05:17Royal Commission called for care to be people focused. What would that look like more broadly
05:23for care to be people focused in aged care?
05:28It was a big challenge that we were set and I think it's one that we have to take very,
05:33very seriously. What it means in the long term is that care adapts to you, not just
05:38to your needs. I get this feedback from older people a lot, particularly those who are being
05:42supported by our services in their own homes to keep them independent. Don't just give
05:46me what I need, give me what I want. Adapt to what I need and want at particular times.
05:53I will change those services over time as my desires change and think about my outcomes
05:59that I'm looking for and deliver services that enable that, not just the clinical. Clinical
06:03is really important but it's not all there is. We have been funded and regulated over
06:07decades to just focus on those clinical needs. There are people living in residential care
06:12who should have been supported by our services to live independently for longer and weren't
06:17because they couldn't get those services. If we have this Act and it says what we think
06:22it will say and what the Royal Commission said it should, then we will be able to be
06:26more flexible. We will be able to build smaller residential aged care facilities so that people
06:30are living amongst 8 older people rather than 100 older people. But all of that takes investment,
06:37it takes certainty over the long term, hence the bipartisanship, and it will take time
06:42to deliver. But if we don't start now, how can we possibly achieve it?
06:47Tom Simonson, the CEO of Aged Community Care Providers Association, thanks so much for
06:53your time this morning.
06:54You're very welcome.
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