Anika Wells MP on Sky News

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS WITH ANDREW CLENNELL

BRISBANE

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2024

SUBJECTS: Aged Care Taskforce’s final report, aged care pay rise, QLD by-election, NZYQ

HOST – ANDREW CLENNELL: Joining me live from Brisbane is the Aged Care Minister, Anika Wells. Thanks so much for your time.Anika Wells, you released this report on the future of aged care and the unaffordability of it during the week. It's been made clear to me that for reforms to go forward, the view in government is you need to do a deal with the opposition. Are you working on that and can it be achieved?

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND MINISTER FOR SPORT: Yes, we are and yes, I hope so too Andrew. I think we should all agree that aged care is one of those areas that has been long neglected. We know that because of the 144 recommendations Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, and we also know that the very sustainability of this sector stands at risk because there isn't enough money going into a sector that needs more money. When you look at the demographic trends before us, we're going to have an additional 3.5 million Australians over 80 by the next 40 years, the number of people aged over 65 will double. The number of people aged over 85 will increase threefold. The number of our centenarians will increase six fold, and that's going to need a lot of investment to make sure that they have a bed and a high quality service to care for them as they age.

CLENNELL: Is it your intention to have reforms up and running in time for the May budget to be included in the May budget? Any changes to funding arrangements?

WELLS: We've received the report from the task force. We have been working on that for a few months. That allowed us to rule out a couple of things this week. You would have seen that Andrew, I know that you are keenly interested in aged care. No new levy on all Australians, no new tax on Australians, no changes to the treatment of the family home. We did that because those were red lines that the opposition had made clear in the budget reply of the opposition leader last year. And we did that both so that older Australians had some certainty about the pathway forward, and also to give us the best possible chance of working in a bipartisan manner on something so important.

CLENNELL: You've got two big problems here. It's fair to say. One is the cost of aged care going from $24 billion to $42 billion from 2022 to 2027, and it keeps going. And the other is the Royal Commission's findings, that the system is one of neglect. Are you confident you have the plans required to tackle both of these?

WELLS: It's a big reform agenda for aged care in the first time of the Albanese government, it was the first piece of legislation that the Albanese government put through the House of Representatives. It was an aged care reform bill, which shows that this is a priority for us. And when you look at the two big pieces of reform before us this year, both how the government responds to the recommendations of the Aged Care Task Force and how the government introduces a new aged care act. It's essentially a grand bargain where everybody in the aged care sector needs more from taxpayers. And together, looking at the recommendations of the task force and the New Aged Care Act, I hope to land that.

CLENNELL: The report says at the moment, home care is provided with the taxpayer meeting 95% of the cost. Is one of the reforms you want to progress that would you like to change that to see a bigger co-contribution?

WELLS: That was certainly the recommendation of the task force that when you know that older people want to stay home, they want to age in place, they want to stay in their home for as long as they possibly can. And we have a system that is not set up for that at the moment. And we have an additional 45,000 people joining the aged care system each year in the years to come, we're going to need to do something about that. And like Peter Dutton himself said in his budget reply when he pledged to work cooperatively with us on aged care, there's only two places that additional funding for aged care can come from, either from the taxpayers or from the people using those services. So currently, like you say, it's 95% taxpayers contribution, 5% the people who use the services contribution. We need to make sure that we get that balance right, so that everybody does get a higher quality service and access to more services, access to services that you can't currently get under home care packages so that people are set up at home for as long as possible.

CLENNELL: Indeed. But would you like to see it come down to 75%, which is the contribution at the moment for residential aged care?

WELLS: Look, those are two completely different systems, the way that residential care is set up compared to the way that home care is set up. The first thing I would say about that is one of the driving goals of the taskforce and what I'm trying to do as the aged care minister is make this system simpler, fairer and easier to navigate. Anyone who's had to grapple with the aged care system when they themselves have had to consider it, or a loved one's had a fall and needed some kind of additional care at short notice, knows that it's a Byzantine scheme. So one of the things that we do need to do in the government's response to those recommendations is try and land something that is simpler and easier to navigate.

CLENNELL: Not willing to nominate at the moment what you'd like that co-contribution to be, what percentage you'd like to see from user pays, and what percentage from the taxpayer on home care?

WELLS: My work continues on that one, and I'll keep you posted.

CLENNELL: Okay. Would you consider what the report recommends involving indexing the daily basic accommodation fee, and would you consider perhaps lifting that fee?

WELLS: Look, one of the recommendations of the task force is the general recognition across the sector that what people pay for by way of basic living expenses and accommodation and hoteling is isn't sufficient either for what they are looking for by way of the standard of the service, or by what the aged care providers need in order to provide a sustainable model for them going forward. Essentially the question of the task force wasn't how do we fix all problems that exist in aged care? It was a very simple and specific question, which is, how do we get more funding into a system that needs more funding?

CLENNELL: All right. So speaking of which, we have this system known as the refundable accommodation deposit, where a lot of residents, I assume, sell their home, provide, say, a $500,000 bond or payment for accommodation. And at present, the home can use that money to earn interest to help pay for accommodation, but can't keep any of the capital, can't take the $500,000, goes back to the family if the person passes or if they move or whatever would you consider changing the system so the home could keep, for example, 10 or 15% of the capital of that payment?

WELLS: Well, that was a recommendation of the task force for government to consider doing that. And it basically agrees with the recommendation of the Royal Commission which was to do away with RADS entirely, albeit the Royal Commission asked governments to do that by 2025. And the task force said that's too soon and it would need to be a far more phased in transitional scheme in order for everybody to cope. Because let me acknowledge and recognise just how much reform in this sector there is at the moment. That's a good thing. It's overdue. People are living their every day hoping that the standards rise after what we all learned in the Royal Commission but it does mean ultimately we need to balance just how much reform we do at once and how things can be staggered. And that was why you'll see the taskforce recommendation was to consider what you're proposing. But to do it in a far more graduated way.

CLENNELL: So we can't expect that sort of thing in the next couple of years. That's not on your agenda, that the homes will be able to keep some of that money?

WELLS: Look, the government is considering all 23 recommendations of the task force, and I'd point you to the fact that one of those recommendations was about any change being transitional, because I'm conscious of the fact that we need to bring everybody with us and get that balance right between good reform, but also reform that sticks.

CLENNELL: Because you used the terms in your press conference during the week, kicking things down the road. You said, the previous governments have been kicking things down the road and yet, Minister, in that task force report, it recommends about refundable accommodation deposits, an independent review in 2030. Well, you may well not even still be in government. Perish the thought for you, I guess, but at that time. So I mean, that really looks like kicking things down the road, doesn't it?

WELLS: I don't think so. I think the point I was making about kicking the can down the road is that there were 22 reports in the nine years of the previous government into aged care. There wasn't anything done about aged care funding, despite these demographic trends being pretty evident and a long time coming. We've had this report since December. We've, been working steadily on it. We've made some progress in the announcements that I was able to make at the press conference earlier this week, as you said, being able to rule out a number of things and set a pathway forward. But we've still got to work on the 23 recommendations as a whole, because this is a huge reform. The last time we did, last time any government did a new age Care Act, it was in 1997, a Howard era act. So if the opportunity for a new Aged Care Act and some of the recommendations of the task force would sit within it if they were adopted by government, we need to do it right. If it only comes along every 30 years, we need to take the time to do it right.

CLENNELL: Okay. On Friday, hundreds of thousands of aged care workers won a 14% pay rise, coming after last year's 15% pay rise and the Fair Work Commission, can you confirm how many workers this affects? And a lot of the commentary was around a fear of the impact of inflation of that pay rise. Do you have a view on that?

WELLS: I saw that commentary. There was a little bit of that commentary when we invested $11.3 billion in the interim pay rise of 15%, which went to 250,000 aged care workers across the country last year. Look, we don't have inflationary problems in this country because our lowest paid workers are earning too much. We have inflationary problems in this country because there is a war in Ukraine. There is uncertainty across the globe. We are in an inflationary cycle. And I would point those commentators with concerns to the fact that both the RBA governor and the Treasury Secretary have said that we aren't in a wage price spiral in this country.

CLENNELL: And how many workers will be impacted by that?

WELLS: I'm not sure if you've read it yourself, the 102 page decision yet Andrew. It was a lot more complex than the interim decision. It suggested new classification scales for personal care workers entirely free. Um, it suggested that the consideration of the work value of nurses be moved off this work value case and into the separate action that the ANMF is taking at fair work. So we are still working through the details of all that as are all of the stakeholders, and we look forward to giving you a government response as soon as we can.

CLENNELL: All right. What's your reaction to the defeat of Ipswich West by the Labor Party in the state by-election overnight? Are there any implications for the state election later this year, or are concerns for Labor, Labor's result there, and are there any lessons or any impact for your government.

WELLS: Look, as a member of federal Labor in Queensland, it's always tough for us here. I'm keeping a close eye on some of the council by elections that we had here in Brisbane last night, and there's two races for wards that sit within Lily, who currently are on a knife's edge, where we Labor are a genuine prospect of taking two wards off the Liberals at Brisbane City Council, which remains the largest Liberal government on the mainland for Australia. I'd also point you to, if you look at some of the results for the Greens in those council wards and that impact that might have both in October and, next year sometime, there is clearly a lot for us to work on.

CLENNELL: All right. And just finally, I wanted to ask you about this migration issue. The Home Affairs minister and Immigration Minister came out with warnings late last week. The government may have to release more illegal immigrants from detention because of the High Court. Is it time the government started trying to legislate its way out of this rather than throw its hands up in despair at the High Court in relation to this?

WELLS: I wouldn't agree with that premise. I don't think that's what we've been doing. We've invested an additional quarter of $1 billion to our law enforcement and security agencies to tackle this problem head on. Ultimately, we are working within the separation of powers, and the way that the High Court interacts with the executive is a set of circumstances that we all need to work within. It's not a matter of doing what you say. It's a matter of responding to a series of complex and ongoing circumstances that continue to evolve.

CLENNELL: Aged Care Minister Anika Wells, thanks so much for your time.

WELLS: Pleasure.