Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): My adjournment is to the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, and the action I seek is that the minister join me in Northcote to hear directly from our older residents about the issues that are important to them. With around 16 per cent of Northcote residents aged 60 and over and many born overseas with English as a second language, our suburbs are home to a very diverse older community. Each and every resident is unique. Some are still working. Others are actively volunteering or caring for their families. Some are living at home and many are in residential care. Whatever the circumstances, as our residents age they deserve to feel safe, supported and connected to their community. Sadly this is not always the case. From social isolation to economic insecurity, health challenges and housing uncertainty, there is significant work to do to give our older residents the care they deserve.

Our federal aged-care system is an absolute mess. After nine years of disgraceful neglect, a pandemic that has brought an already broken sector to its knees and a federal aged care minister who refuses to acknowledge his own abject failure, aged care is in crisis. I have heard from heartbroken residents who are frustrated and furious at the federal government’s scandalous neglect of aged-care residents. The sector is facing huge staff shortages, and is it any wonder? Aged-care staff are some of the most underpaid, under-resourced and undervalued workers by the Morrison government, and after a royal commission that they have left sitting on the shelf it is clear that the only way to fix aged care will be to change the government.

But many older residents in Northcote also want to maintain their independence as long as possible by continuing to live at home. There is high demand in our suburbs for in-home care and support through aged-care packages. Disappointingly, we are continually having to defend these council-run services from being on the chopping block by the Greens. For years they have sought to privatise these critical services, and at very short notice over Christmas they suspended in-home aged-care support. That meant hundreds of residents went without personal care, grocery shopping and cleaning at a time when the pandemic was weighing down our state and residents were even more vulnerable. Our residents received a heartless and confusing letter to communicate the news, and it caused significant distress. Our older residents deserve to age with dignity, support and care, not with neglect and uncertainty. I know the minister is committed to seeing our older residents safe and supported to age well in their own communities, and I look forward to welcoming him to hear directly from locals about what more we can do.