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senate vote 2018-11-26#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2023-06-09 06:58:32
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Title
Bills — Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2018; in Committee- Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018 and another - in Committee - Publicly available information
Description
<p class="speaker">Zed Seselja</p><p>I table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018. The addendum responds to concerns raised by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. I also table two supplementary explanatory memoranda relating to the government amendments to be moved to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018.</p>-
- The majority voted against an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2018-11-26.27.1) to government amendment (8), which means it failed.
- ### Amendment text
- > *(1) Amendment (8), after paragraph 59A(1) (d), insert:*
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- >> *(da) the number of staff, and the skill mix of staff, providing direct care to persons who are recipients of the service;*
- ### Original government amendment (8)
- > *(8) Page 36 (after line 26) , at the end of Division 3 , add:*
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- >> *59A Information about Commonwealth-funded aged care service may be made publicly available*
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- >> *(1) The Commissioner may make publicly available the following information about a Commonwealth-funded aged care service:*
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- >>> *(a) the name and address of the service;*
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- >>> *(b) the number of persons who are recipients of the service;*
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- >>> *(c) the services provided by the service;*
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- >>> *(d) the facilities and activities available to persons who are recipients of the service;*
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- >>> *(e) the name of the service provider of the service;*
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- >>> *(f) information about the variety and type of service provided by the service provider;*
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- >>> *(g) information about the service provider’s performance in relation to the provider’s responsibilities under the funding agreement that relates to the service;*
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- >>> *(h) any action taken, or intended to be taken, under this Act or the rules to protect the welfare of persons who are recipients of the service, and the reasons for that action;*
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- >>> *(i) any other information of a kind specified in the rules for the purposes of this paragraph.*
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- >> *(2) Information disclosed under subsection (1) must not include personal information.*
<p>I seek leave to move government amendments (1) to (9), as circulated, together.</p><p>Leave granted.</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">(1) Clause 17, page 12 (line 3), after "consumers", insert "and their representatives".</p><p class="italic">(2) Clause 17, page 12 (line 7), after "consumers", insert "and the representatives of those consumers".</p><p class="italic">(3) Clause 23, page 16 (after line 32), after subclause (1), insert:</p><p class="italic">(1A) However, the Commissioner must not charge:</p><p class="italic">(a) an aged care consumer, or their representative, fees for services provided by the Commissioner in performing the consumer engagement functions; or</p><p class="italic">(b) a complainant fees for services provided by the Commissioner in performing the complaints functions.</p><p class="italic">(4) Page 22 (after line 18), at the end of Part 4, add:</p><p class="italic">35A Chief Clinical Advisor</p><p class="italic">The Commissioner must, in writing, appoint a person who is a member of the staff of the Commission, or a consultant engaged under section 35, as the Chief Clinical Advisor to assist the Commissioner in the performance of the Commissioner's functions.</p><p class="italic">(5) Clause 41, page 25 (line 21), omit paragraph (3) (c), substitute:</p><p class="italic">(c) issues affecting aged care consumers or their representatives;</p><p class="italic">(6) Clause 59, page 36 (line 7), after "places", insert "(if any)".</p><p class="italic">(7) Clause 59, page 36 (after line 7), after paragraph (1) (b), insert:</p><p class="italic">(ba) if the service is a home care service—the number of care recipients provided with care through the service;</p><p class="italic">(8) Page 36 (after line 26), at the end of Division 3, add:</p><p class="italic">59A Information about Commonwealth - funded aged care service may be made publicly available</p><p class="italic">(1) The Commissioner may make publicly available the following information about a Commonwealth-funded aged care service:</p><p class="italic">(a) the name and address of the service;</p><p class="italic">(b) the number of persons who are recipients of the service;</p><p class="italic">(c) the services provided by the service;</p><p class="italic">(d) the facilities and activities available to persons who are recipients of the service;</p><p class="italic">(e) the name of the service provider of the service;</p><p class="italic">(f) information about the variety and type of service provided by the service provider;</p><p class="italic">(g) information about the service provider's performance in relation to the provider's responsibilities under the funding agreement that relates to the service;</p><p class="italic">(h) any action taken, or intended to be taken, under this Act or the rules to protect the welfare of persons who are recipients of the service, and the reasons for that action;</p><p class="italic">(i) any other information of a kind specified in the rules for the purposes of this paragraph.</p><p class="italic">(2) Information disclosed under subsection (1) must not include personal information.</p><p class="italic">(9) Page 52 (after line 14), after clause 76, insert:</p><p class="italic">76A Review of operation of this Act and the rules</p><p class="italic">(1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of this Act and the rules to be conducted within 6 months after the fifth anniversary of the commencement of this Act.</p><p class="italic">(2) The persons who conduct the review must give the Minister a written report of the review.</p><p class="italic">(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.</p><p>The government proposes a number of amendments to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill. The proposed amendments address various issues raised in the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee's inquiry into these bills. The government welcomes the committee's recommendation that the bills be passed and that establishing the commission should not be delayed. As the committee noted, there will be a further opportunity to pursue improvements in a second stage of reform, as signalled in the objects of the bill. However, after considering the issues raised in the inquiry with both the committee and stakeholders that appeared before the committee, the government considers that there are some amendments which would be appropriate to be made now, to apply from the commencement of the commission on 1 January 2019.</p><p>These amendments will support the new commission in its role as the single point of contact for aged-care consumers and providers of aged care in relation to quality of care and regulation. These changes refine or clarify the government's policy intent to deliver more integrated and responsive regulatory oversight of the sector and contribute to the bill's objects and focus for consumers. In summary, these changes will broaden the scope of the commissioner's consumer engagement functions to include the representatives of aged-care consumers; remove the ability of the commissioner to charge fees for services to complainants and consumers for certain functions; provide for the commissioner to be supported in the performance of their functions by a chief clinical adviser appointed by the commissioner; extend eligibility for appointing members of the advisory council to include persons with experience or knowledge of issues affecting aged-care consumers or their representatives, such as informal carers; extend the commissioner's power to publish information about aged-care services to include other Commonwealth-grant-funded services; and provide for a statutory review of the operation of the act to occur in early 2024, which will be five years after the commencement of this bill and four years after the second stage of reforms foreshadowed in this bill. I commend these amendments.</p> <p class="speaker">Cory Bernardi</p><p>Senator Siewert, you have an amendment?</p> <p class="speaker">Rachel Siewert</p><p>Yes, I do. I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 8577:</p><p class="italic">(1) Amendment (8), after paragraph 59A(1) (d), insert:</p><p class="italic">(da) the number of staff, and the skill mix of staff, providing direct care to persons who are recipients of the service;</p><p>Temporary Chair, could I seek your guidance. I have a series of questions to clarify the operation of the commission. I am wondering whether I should start asking those questions. Now that I have moved that amendment, should I do it now?</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Siewert, it would probably be advantageous for us to deal with your amendment and seek a response from the government. The government amendments have been moved. After the failure or passage of those amendments—whichever it may be—we will come back to your general question.</p> <p class="speaker">Helen Polley</p><p>I want to put on record that the Labor Party will be supporting the government's amendments.</p> <p class="speaker">Zed Seselja</p><p>I thank the opposition for their support of our amendments. We thank Senator Siewert for her proposed amendment to the government amendments. The government doesn't support the proposed amendment to clause 59A of the bill for the same reasons it does not support the proposed amendments to clause 59. The government does not support the proposed amendment to include a reference to the number of staff, and the skill mix of staff, providing direct care to care recipients. There is a risk that publishing the wrong information, or information in the wrong context, will mislead consumers about what it means and adversely affect the business of providers. Additionally, appropriate arrangements must also be implemented to facilitate the commissioner receiving, analysing and reporting this information from providers and regulating its integrity. Making such an amendment before there has been an opportunity to consider and implement arrangements to support this proposal is likely to raise expectations which will not be fulfilled.</p> <p class="speaker">Rachel Siewert</p><p>I want to ask some questions specifically around this particular amendment and in response to what the minister has just said. Is the government proposing, as we noted in our contributions and as you yourself earlier noted, that there will be further amendments to this commission process? Is the government thinking that you will be dealing with the skill mix a bit later on? This is a really serious issue and it is going to keep coming up again and again. It is better to have a proper process in place rather than what we have now. For example, we don't even have a guarantee that we will have a nurse on 24/7, which some of us think is the absolute minimum that would be required. Recent studies have shown that the amount of contact and care hours that are required is four hours and 18 minutes, and we are nowhere near that in Australia. Those are the sorts of things the public wants to know, consumers want to know and, importantly, the families of residents in aged care particularly want to know as well.</p> <p class="speaker">Zed Seselja</p><p>Thank you, Senator Siewert. To the first part of the question, the answer is yes—that there are further reforms that have been flagged. But, in terms of the skills mix that you're specifically pointing to, the government's view is that this isn't the right act for that to be considered in and that, in fact, the Aged Care Act is where skills issues should be considered. So, in terms of the government's thinking, obviously the government will make announcements in due course, but we believe that the right place to look at those issues is in the Aged Care Act.</p> <p class="speaker">Helen Polley</p><p>Labor understands the intent of the Greens amendment. The government is currently sitting on the Aged Care Workforce Strategy. For some months, Labor has been calling on the government to address the <i>A matter of care</i> workforce strategy, as this should have been done immediately. Aged-care workforce development is not an optional policy area. The aged-care workforce is diverse, and we acknowledge the work that is being carried out by nurses, carers and allied health professionals. We hope that the government act on the workforce strategy that is before them. It's all there laid out for them; they just need to take some action. Labor will not be supporting the Greens amendment. We think it can be done in the future in a different piece of legislation.</p> <p class="speaker">Rachel Siewert</p><p>I will note that this is about releasing the information. While I accept that there are other pieces of legislation that regulate the aged-care sector, this would enable people to at least get access to information about what's going on. As I said, we do appreciate the fact that there's a lot of work to do and that other acts would be required to specifically start regulating the process if the government were so minded. We think this would improve the operation of the commission and certainly enable the community to get better access to and understanding of what's happening in the provision of aged care.</p> <p class="speaker">Cory Bernardi</p><p>The question is that the Australian Greens amendment to government amendment (8) be agreed to.</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: The question now is that government amendments (1) to (9) on sheet GN154 be agreed to.</p> -
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