Mr ALBANESE(5.08 p.m.) —The Aged Care (Compensation Payments) Bill highlights the difference between us and those opposite. Labor sees care for aged people as being the government's responsibility because old age is not a permanent state. People are not born old and frail and in need of nursing home care. Old people have made a lifetime's contribution to the development of our society and our economy, and they deserve our respect. They have paid a lifetime of taxes. But how does this government reward this service? By allowing nursing home owners to strip their assets, including the family home. This bill is short sighted and mean spirited. It is motivated by the government's desire to abdicate its responsibility for care for the aged.

The 1996-97 budget slashed funding for aged care by over half a billion dollars, with a $244 million reduction on outlays on capital commitments, a $253 million reduction to subsidies paid to nursing homes for care and $72 million saved by introducing a system of user pays for home and community care programs. The 1997-98 budget has allocated some funds to aged care but after the devastation of the 1996-97 budget it is a bit like robbing someone of all their possessions one day and the next day returning the toaster and saying, `You should be grateful for this.'

The 1997-98 budget has allocated $10.2 million over four years for dementia support. But this is very poor compared to Labor's $31 million over five years as part of our national action plan for dementia from 1992. Furthermore, a one-off grant of $600,000 for dementia facilities is simply for show. During the 1996 election campaign the Liberals promised to introduce grant funding for specialist facilities commencing on 1 January 1997. This simply has not happened. The paltry $600,000 offered is not enough to build even one dementia specific centre. In last year's budget we learnt all about core and non-core promises. Obviously we need subgroups within the core promises: substantive and non-substantive funding perhaps.

This government is not interested in the welfare of aged people. It is only interested in reducing the size of government services in the naive belief that market forces—those caring, benevolent market forces that the minister's mates in the real estate industry support—exist only in the minds of the coalition and will have the interests of all Australians at heart. This is really fairyland stuff.

The electorate of Grayndler, which I represent, is fairly typical of many inner metropolitan electorates. Most of the older residents in my electorate have lived their whole lives in the area. In the main they are not wealthy. They do not have big savings. In June 1995 there were 12,500 aged pensioners living in Grayndler, which comprised about nine per cent of the total population.

Ms Macklin —Have they got $88,000?

Mr ALBANESE —They certainly do not have the $88,000 which they would need if they wanted to get into a nursing home. For most of those people, the most valuable and indeed only asset that they have is their home. After 1 October 1997, most people requiring nursing home care who own their own home will be forced to sell it. The people in Grayndler are no exception.

There are around 2,000 nursing home beds in Grayndler, which works out to be 180.2 beds per thousand head of population over 70 years. The Australian average is 59 beds per thousand over 70 years. So the people in my electorate have a vested interest in the future of nursing home care in Australia.

I have tabled a petition in the parliament which contains the signatures of almost 1,000 residents in Grayndler who are genuinely afraid of how this legislation will affect their access to quality and affordable nursing home care. I feel it is my duty, on behalf of the older people I represent, to speak out against this proposed legislation which will result in an unfair two-tier system of care.

Those who argue that this is in the interests of elderly Australians are simply kidding themselves. If you adopt the market model then you must accept that profit rather than accessibility and affordability becomes the goal. That is the primary problem with this bill. If the government is not prepared to put up the funding for capital works and upgrades then developers must take up the slack. You cannot argue that developers work on a charity model; developers work to make a profit and the bigger the profit the better. It is shown by the fact that friends of the government's legislation in this area are on the top 200 BRW rich list, as I pointed out earlier on today.

Owners of nursing homes will not be obliged to use the interest earnings on patient care or on upgrades. They can take it as profit if they wish. There are no controls in this bill. The bill is designed for the owners of nursing homes, not for the residents. As I noted before, this legislation will result in a two-tier system: one for the rich and one for the poor. There is no incentive in this legislation for homes to be built in poorer parts of the country, just as there is no incentive for homes to accept the less well off as residents.

The government has said that nursing home owners will be compensated if they take residents with little or no savings, but it has already set the subsidy for concessional residents at a paltry $5 a day. This is a pathetic response and is an insult to all those who have a genuine care for elderly Australians. It is absurdly low and it provides no incentive at all. It has had a negative reaction from private and not-for-profit nursing home providers alike. These providers consider the absolute minimum satisfactory amount to be $12 a day. Five dollars a day is just a joke. What will happen to people who have no assets? They will be shunted into substandard institutions, possibly a long distance from their family and support networks.

The legislation is fundamentally flawed because it is designed as a cost saving measure by this uncaring government. The government should take responsibility for aged care services and should ensure equal access and high quality care for all Australians. The government has a responsibility to care for elderly Australians, not simply to represent the interests of its mates such as the Moran Health Care Group. The Moran Health Care Group have two responsibilities: one is making massive profits which have led to Mr Moran ending up at No. 40 on the top 200 list and the second is providing a retirement home for failed Liberal politicians such as Bob Woods and John Hewson.

The fact that the member for Lindsay (Miss Jackie Kelly) joined in today in defending the Moran Health Care Group shows that she is keeping her options open in case, after the next election, she needs to get a job with the Moran Health Care Group as well. The fact that that particular group is taking responsibility for drafting the government's legislation—taking credit for this bill before the House today—says a lot about who will stand to benefit from this disgraceful bill which represents an abrogation of the government's responsibility for aged care.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.