E&OE...............................................
O'BRIEN:
I am joined now, from Parliament House, by the Prime Minister.
John Howard, you have had a rough trot with aged care policy in
recent months and on a day when you try to focus on some good news,
the critics still keep coming out of the woodwork, even within your
own Liberal ranks.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kerry, there are always critics. But it doesn't alter
the fact that we've announced a package that has absolutely
dramatic new measures to help people stay in their own homes and
for the first time really gives proper recognition to some of the
unsung heroes of a caring, compassionate society, and that is carers
who look after relatives and friends, often many of them themselves
quite elderly. And I'm very proud of that package. And I'm
quite certain that the people who will benefit from it know how
ground-breaking it is.
I mean, older people want to stay in their own homes. They don't
want to go into institutional care. Sadly, some have to and if they
do, they're entitled to decent accommodation and proper conditions.
Overwhelmingly, older Australians want to stay in their own homes.
And what we're doing is putting an unprecedented level of additional
resources into helping people stay in their own homes. We're
going to help people go into the homes of older people and look
after them and, thereby, prolong the time that they can stay in
their own homes. Now, that is compassionate, it's what people
want and, in every sense of the word, it's very good policy.
And I don't really mind what static is around on other issues.
Nothing can disguise the fact that this is a cut-through, ground-breaking
new approach, in terms of the volume of resources, to enabling people
to stay in their own homes.
O'BRIEN:
But there are those who see this as you robbing Peter to pay Paul,
that you've already made a number of cuts in areas of aged
care and now you come up with this in an election year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we haven't robbed anybody. I mean, in the aged care
area we have increased, by 14 per cent, over Labor's last year
in office, the funds that we've provided. And this money that's
going into these areas is - this is an area quite separate from
nursing homes and, in any event, the claim that, in aggregate, we've
cut funding to nursing homes is quite wrong.
O'BRIEN:
Well, the biggest private nursing home proprietor, Mark Moran,
describes your package as, quote:- a desperate prank. He says, quote:-
the Prime Minister is neglecting elderly Australians.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Mr Moran is entitled to his own opinion. But you've
got to understand that he is in the business of running nursing
homes and obviously he would like more money given to the providers
of nursing homes. I'm interested in the people who go into
nursing homes and I'm also interested in people who want to
stay in their own homes. And the priority of my Government will
always be to give help to people who either want to stay in their
homes or if they go into nursing homes, to guarantee that they get
decent conditions.
Now, you've got to understand, Kerry, that, with the greatest
respect to Mr Moran and others in his position, they have a vested
business interest in trying to verbal the Government into giving
them more money.
O'BRIEN:
Well, Francis Sullivan of the Catholic Health Care Association,
isn't in it with a profit motive and he has welcomed the money
for home carers. But he says you are still ignoring huge problems
with capital funding for nursing homes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, once again - I mean, he's putting a point of view on
behalf of his sector and I'm not criticising that. But what
I do point out is that the new accommodation charge system will
result in hundreds of millions of dollars of additional capital
going into the nursing home sector over the next few years. And
I do note, as you did, that Mr Sullivan, who's been quite a
critic of ours over time, welcomed very warmly, as did the Council
on the Aging, as did a whole range of groups concerned with the
disabled in our community and with carers in our community, they
welcomed our package.
I mean, what they liked was the philosophy behind it and that is,
we're helping people to stay at home and that's what older
people want to do. They'd far rather be cared for in their
own home environment. You grow more attached to your home the older
you are.
O'BRIEN:
Well, let's look at one of the groups that you're helping.
You've given $15 million over four years to 8,000 elderly people
who are caring for adult children with profound disability. The
Council for Intellectual Disability says this amounts to $9.00 per
person, per week. What do you expect that to do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is obviously a recognition and it will make a significant
contribution. And, in addition, which is not mentioned in the question,
we are providing some resources to help ease the greatest worry
of many of those elderly carers. And that is what will happen to
their children, often well into adulthood, when they, themselves,
are no longer to care for them. We've found, in talking to
these people, that the thing they worry about most, after having
cared for a disabled child perhaps for 20, 30, 40 years, is what
is going to happen to that child when they, themselves, are no longer
around. And the resources we're going to put in in this area
- and you can always put more, I mean...
O'BRIEN:
But the point is, the Council for Intellectual Disabilities says
that there are currently 370,000 intellectually or physically disabled
people over 45 years of age - that is people who are relying on
older members of the family to look after them or whose older members
have actually died - this number, they say, will increase by 100,000
in the next five years, 25,000 will have severe intellectual disabilities.
To put it brutally, the number of carers looking after them at home
are simply dying, dying out through old age. The Council says, these
people are often likely to end up sleeping in the street. That's
after hearing about your package today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in addition to the 15 million, I should point out that we
are going to increase, what's called the domiciliary nursing
care benefit with effect from the 1st of July and we are also, the
following year, going to significantly expand the eligibility criteria
for that nursing home and that nursing care benefit and that will
then include the carers of many profoundly intellectually impaired
and disabled people. Now Kerry, if you are saying to me that Governments,
there could always be more resources provided in the areas, of course
that is true, and we are endeavouring, given our strength and budget
position, we are endeavouring to provide targeted help to areas
of very significant need in the community. Now I have never known
a Government that is ever told by any interest group in the community
that all of the resources they would want provided have been provided.
But we have gone a very significant step forward in this package
and we have put a far greater emphasis than any former Government
on helping people to stay in their own homes and we have given,
it is recognised by all of the groups today that I addressed, and
there were 400 of them here, it was recognised that we have given
a recognition to carers, particularly elderly carers of disabled
and intellectually impaired adult children, a recognition and a
level of assistance that no former Government has given.
O'BRIEN:
Mr Howard, can we please look at dental health, we have a small
amount of time left.
PRIME MINISTER:
I know, but you chose to put a proposition to me about the apparent
insensitivity of a certain amount of money. Now I have pointed out
to you that there are more changes that are going to benefit that
sector and also that the magnitude and the shift of emphasis involved
is quite significant.
O'BRIEN:
Mr Howard, if we can look with the remaining time left at dental
care for the aged. You abolished the $400 million Commonwealth dental
health scheme, waiting times for the poor and elderly needing urgent
dental care have quadrupled. The horror stories are pouring in.
Will you address that problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Mr O'Brien, Kerry, the programme was introduced by the
former Government with a time limit of four years and it ended only
six months earlier than that four year period because the target
group identified in the programme had been provided for. It has
traditionally been...
O'BRIEN:
But it would appear very clearly that it hasn't been provided
for.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the number that have been identified by the former Government
so I'm told was a waiting list of about 1.2 million people.
Now this has traditionally been an area of State responsibility.
It has never been until - at one programme that was introduced by
the former Government as it has always been an area of State responsibility.
O'BRIEN:
But you've heard Joanna Gash's, your own Liberal backbencher,
you've heard her own words on this that the people in her Electorate
are outraged by your insensitivity. She says the public dental care
is at crisis point, outrageous stories of suffering are emerging.
One woman, all of her teeth in need of extraction, but she has to
wait until each tooth is causing extreme pain before that individual
tooth can be pulled. She is in no doubt, your own backbencher, is
in no doubt in her mind about where that responsibility lies, with
you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's natural that a Federal Member of Parliament will
approach the Federal Government but this has always been a State
responsibility.
O'BRIEN:
But the Commonwealth did act to bring in money to try to alleviate
the problem.
PRIME MINISTER:
And it was a specific programme that was there for a particular
period of time and the decision that we took was taken on the basis
that the group that was targeted for special additional assistance
had in fact been effectively assisted.
O'BRIEN:
But isn't it clear that they haven't?
PRIME MINISTER:
Over that shorter period, well, of course, the Federal Government
is not the only Government in the field in these areas. We have
responsibility but so do state governments and this proposition
that every time there is a particular need in the community, it
is just the Federal Government and the Federal Government has that
responsibility.
O'BRIEN:
The Federal Government took $400 million out and Joanna Gash again...people
needing tooth extractions being turned away each morning in agony
because they can't get attention.
PRIME MINISTER:
That particular programme had a time limit of four years. The target
group was 1.2 million and those people had in fact been treated,
according to the advice that we have received. Now I mean, you can
put every difficult situation in the community before a Prime Minister
or before a Federal Government and say: well it is your responsibility
to fix that. State governments have responsibilities. State governments
get significant funds from federal governments for health and all
sorts of other things. They are getting, after all, significant
increases from us over the next five years in the health area. They
do get, they are getting a five per cent real increase in their
general taxation funds out of the Federal Government over the coming
year and this is in a climate of zero inflation and it is quite
legitimate of me to say that this is as much, if not more, a state
government responsibility as it is a federal one.
O'BRIEN:
John Howard, thanks very much for talking with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a pleasure.
[Ends]