Collins Judith: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17347] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the National Party in relation to Part 2—which of course is slightly confusing to anyone listening because this part actually inserts a new Part 4 into the principal Act so we have a Part 2 and a Part 4 together. I note that the National Party is supporting the amendments in Part 2 in order to assist where we can in this area—an area of course where we have some extremely vulnerable people. I am sure that all of us here either have had or do have very elderly parents so I think we understand that they are people who need to be looked after—and for some the relationship between parent and child is somewhat reversed in the process. Obviously we are very pleased in many ways to be able to support these particular amendments. 
A few issues have been brought up in relation to the report back to the House. In particular there is an issue about conjugal status. The Social Services Committee made a comment about the wording of section 152 inserted by clause 4 in relation to whether it is actually sufficiently clear. 
 There are also issues in relation to the change in asset value and maximum contribution and in particular to the cap of $636 per week. That sounds like an awful lot of money—and of course it is—but when we look at the cost of looking after someone in what is really a hospital situation we see that it is not that much more. In fact that cost is often cheaper than the cost of a lot of motel rooms over a weekly period. So to have that cap put in legislation like this I think can be very very difficult particularly for the providers. 
I am very concerned that there are people in this industry who have indicated they will exit the industry because they feel that they just cannot make ends meet. One of the problems in the industry is that it has a lot of groups of people operating in it who comprise not-for-profit organisations. Normally we would say that that was a good thing and that they are organisations such as The Salvation Army who are able to provide a good standard of care. But the trouble is that The Salvation Army is now getting out of that provision of care because it cannot make ends meet. 
The irony is that the people who can just survive happen to be the bigger commercial operators because the smaller commercial operators are certainly finding that there really is not enough in the rates that are paid to make it worth their while. Not only are they in the situation of having to provide a good standard of care but they are also in the situation where they care for people who are often in great need and who are now coming into this sort of care much later in life. 
About 20 years ago elderly people would often live in the situation of long-term residential care for maybe 15 or 20 years before they died. So they were going into care in a much better physical mental and emotional state than the state they are often in now. As I recall from the Social Services Committee hearings on this bill people said that the average time the elderly now stay in residential care is I think about 6 months. I am sure the Minister will know that more precisely than I do but it is a much shorter period of time. I ask the Minister whether that is right. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Eighteen months. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Eighteen months is it? It is certainly not what it used to be. I am sure that many of the members of the Committee like me were trotted around by their parents to go and visit elderly great-aunts and other relatives who had been living in rest homes for many many years. Certainly that is not a situation we tend to have now because people are more often staying in their own homes. There are caregivers coming into those homes which I think is a very very good thing but we do need to have better services and wages for caregivers. I think we here can all agree that caregivers are people who help our elderly to stay in their own homes. It takes a huge weight off their families to know there is someone going in every day or every second day to make sure that something is happening for them.