Goodhew Jo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Goodhew Jo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7929] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I wish to spend time speaking on something that is very close to my heart and that is that subject of aged care. As National’s spokeswoman on aged care I have been going around the country conducting fora. I am finding a sector that is in disarray. We have growing numbers of elderly folk who are vulnerable and very concerned about their future. I am talking about the older folk who want to stay in their own home and seek access to home-based support services. I am talking about the older folk who for whatever reason find themselves in aged residential care—be that a rest home hospital care or dementia care. 
How do I know about how those people are feeling? It is because I have been out there consulting with the sector—consulting in a listening way—and asking the people to tell me what the problems are for them. I have consulted at fora in my home electorate of Aoraki and in Auckland Wellington Christchurch Palmerston North and Hamilton—and other fora have been lined up. Other dedicated National MPs in other parts of New Zealand have asked me to hold fora in their areas as well. I have visited rest homes in Otaki Hamilton and many parts of New Zealand and I have plans to see more. What did I find? I found a workforce in crisis—not just an aged residential care crisis but a home-based support service crisis. 
Like many other National Party MPs I have workers coming through the door of my electorate office and asking me to do something about the way the sector is at the moment. There is not only a crisis of numbers but a crisis of confidence. Most recently in Hamilton I was given to understand that there is frustration on the part of those in aged residential care because the Minister Pete Hodgson and the Prime Minister repeatedly muddle the fact that aged residential care and retirement villages are not part of one and the same budget sheet. In fact although some money may be made out of property investments on the part of retirement villages there is a strong belief that there is no fat in the aged residential care sector—none whatsoever. 
Maybe it is a philosophical bent on the part of the Minister and Prime Minister that leads them to say that these particular businesses and providers are ripping off the workers. That might explain why in answer to a written question the Minister told me today that he thinks the aged residential care sector is underfunded and that he has instructed the unions—wait for it—to work with the district health boards to improve the wages. Hang on a minute! What are unions going to do in working with the district health boards to raise the wages? Maybe we will see strikes coming in the aged care sector. I sincerely hope not. 
I say to the Minister that it is time to look at the whole sector and at exactly where it is going wrong. It is time to look at the fact that the aged residential care sector cannot afford to dedicate respite beds so we have carers of the elderly at home getting sick as well as the elderly. It is time to look at the over-auditing—not to survey about over-auditing but to actually do some work to make sure there is some consistency in auditing so that the high compliance costs currently facing the sector are reduced. 
It is anti-business rhetoric that makes this particular Government think that the providers are holding out on the workers. We see a Government that is unwilling to recognise through its district health boards that there have been cost implications from the legislation it brought down. I am talking about the Holidays Act and the raising of the minimum wage level. I too believe that workers in residential care and home-based support services need to be paid more but it is not enough simply to say that more has to be found from the managers. That is not the way in which the Government should be looking at this situation. 
I can tell members that this sector is in disarray and will need some serious work. That work cannot be done from Budget to Budget which is all we are seeing at the moment. In one speech a year the Minister will announce: “Well I’ll look at it in the Budget. I’ll throw some more money at it in the next Budget and hope that solves the problem.” I say to the Minister that it is not good enough.