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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-03 Daily Xml
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AGED-CARE REFORM PACKAGE

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (14:55): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister inform the house how the federal government's Living Longer, Living Better aged-care reform package will lead to better and fairer aged care for senior South Australians?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:56): I thank the member for Ramsay for this question. As members would know, the federal government recently announced the $3.7 billion Living Longer, Living Better aged-care reform package, which will give senior South Australians more choice about how and where they live and a fairer way for them to pay for aged care. This is one of the biggest issues facing our society, our community—and our Treasury, I have to say.

With increased home care packages and extra levels of care, more senior South Australians will be able to live at home longer, and that is absolutely what people want. Fairer means testing for home care packages will mean that people will pay only what they can afford and homes will continue to be exempt from the aged-care assets test, which is also what seniors want. People who require residential care will have a greater choice about how they pay for their accommodation as well. The package also looks after South Australian carers by boosting their access to respite services and counselling, and I certainly welcome that.

Additional funding will be available to aged-care providers servicing regional, rural and remote parts of our state, in recognition of the unique challenges they face. I hope that members opposite who represent rural South Australia would support that and you, too, Madam Speaker. The package will boost and strengthen the aged-care workforce through higher wages, which I am sure the union will support, improved career structures, more training and education opportunities, and better work practices. That will mean that it will be easier to recruit to aged care.

An amount of $268.4 million is allocated to tackling dementia, a very serious problem in our community (predicted to become the leading cause of disability in Australia by just 2016), delivering more timely diagnosis, increased support for younger onset dementia, improving training for staff dealing with people with severe dementia, and better care for people who have dementia but who are still living at home.

With the highest percentage of people aged over 65 in the country, our state is acutely aware of the importance of aged-care reform. As the initial wave of baby boomers reach 65 for the first time in our history, we are seeing two generations simultaneously in the retirement years. Along with new challenges, this situation poses new opportunities to redesign the experience and the perception of ageing and, indeed, of retirement.

Dr Alexandre Kalache, one of our current Thinkers in Residence, who is our first ageing specialist as Thinker in Residence, is helping us to seize the opportunities presented by these changes in the demography of our state. An internationally renowned expert in active ageing and age-friendly communities, Dr Kalache developed the active ageing initiative of the World Health Organisation and established the World Health Organisation age-friendly cities initiative, which continues to flourish in many communities. Now he is guiding our work on building an age-friendly South Australia. Most recently, he met with the Premier and the federal Minister for Ageing, Mark Butler, and he conducted consultations and workshops, and he also visited Port Pirie to discuss positive ageing with residents from the member for Frome's electorate. Later this year, he will make recommendations on our next step in reshaping ageing.

In conclusion, this is a really exciting area of policy to be involved in. It presents enormous challenges to us but, if we grasp those challenges correctly, I think we will unleash a huge amount of energy amongst our older citizens.

The SPEAKER: Can I point out to those who have concerns about the difference in time that we appear to be having that, under sessional orders, the Speaker has the discretion to extend the time for a minister's answer if the answer is interrupted by points of order. Our Clerk, who has obviously played a lot of computer games in his time, is very dexterous at switching off the clock whenever there is a point of order, and that is where the discrepancy is arising: it immediately stops for a point of order, and then it goes straight back on again as soon as the question is resumed. So, that is where you are finding there is a difference.

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: No, it is a point of order that we consider an interruption; otherwise, as an opposition, you could spend the whole time doing points of order and the minister would never get their four minutes to answer their question.

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