Australian Politics
Thursday, October 05, 2023
Aged care being regulated out of existence
Government ostriches think they can make the system work by importing workers. But it is registered nurses who are in short supply and any of those who immigrate would have better options
One in seven nursing home beds sits empty across Australia, despite long waiting lists, because there are too few workers to service older people needing care, a new report warns.
The staffing shortage means too many people who should be in residential aged care are stuck in hospital, with no safe alternative accommodation, it says.
The situation is worse in the regions, where some aged-care homes are running at 50 per cent capacity as they struggle to attract workers, a Committee for Economic Development Australia report finds.
The CEDA paper, “Duty of care: Aged care sector running on empty”, concludes that increased mandatory staffing hours requirements from October 1 this year are contributing to the sector’s precarious financial situation, with more than half the nation’s nursing homes operating at a loss.
To free up the bed block, it proposes accelerating the recruitment of migrant workers into the care economy through an “essential skills visa” to allow workers to migrate with long-term residency opportunities.
This visa category would be available only for areas of critical need such as aged care, childcare, disability and healthcare.
“Data from March 2023 shows that the average occupancy rate across all residential aged-care places was 86 per cent,” the report says. “But there is no lack of demand. In fact most providers report having long waiting lists.
‘Consultation with industry suggests the key reason for these low occupancy rates is workforce shortages, which means facilities cannot operate at full capacity.”
The report also says the federal government must find ways to better financially support the aged-care sector, including considering new laws to make older people who can afford it contribute more to the cost of their care.
The Albanese government has commissioned a taskforce to examine the issues faced in aged care, including funding and workforce. It will report by the end of the year.
The taskforce chair, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells, has flagged it is considering a proposal from aged-care providers for older people to use superannuation to cover some of the costs of care.
CEDA chief economist Cassandra Winzar, author of the new report, said the new mandatory staffing requirements were behind the empty beds. “These staffing changes are important to increase the quality of care for older Australians, but they are adding pressure on providers already struggling to maintain their workforces and come on top of growing demand for home-care services.”
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Red tape, crime and rising costs a ‘perfect storm’ building against Australian small business
Business leaders have warned that small business in Australia is being hit with an increasing regulatory burden at a time when it is having to deal with rising interest rates, higher costs and cyber crime.
Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief executive Luke Achterstraat said small businesses in Australia were facing a “perfect storm” of increasing compliance costs at a time when they could least afford it.
A combination of the stricter new industrial relations regulation and other measures such as the expansion of privacy legislation to small business as well as the challenges of dealing with cyber crime have hit the sector hard at a time when it is facing rising interest rates and costs, told The Australian.
“External shocks have driven up some costs such as energy, but the federal government is internalising the problem through more red tape and a layer cake of regulation,” he said.
Mr Achterstraat said a recent survey of COSBOA members had shown that the government’s new changes to industrial relations were seen as the number one risk facing small business in the coming months.
“To think the government’s workplace policy in a country like Australia is now perceived as a greater risk to small business than the threat of cyber attacks, natural disasters, oil and energy price shocks and even interest rates costs is truly remarkable,” he said. “It shows how dramatic the cost of compliance can be for a small business.”
Mr Achterstraat said compliance costs from the proposed changes to industrial relations legislation could add as much as 20 per cent to a small business’s annual operating costs. He said the new industrial relations laws would be the “most significant rewriting of our industrial relations system in living memory.”
Proposed changes included “throwing out the window well-understood definitions of casual workers and independent contractors that apply to over three million Australians”.
Mr Achterstraat said 90 per cent of businesses surveyed by COSBOA said the changes would mean they were less likely to employ more staff.
Small businesses were also concerned at the extent of the changes including prison time of up to 10 years in jail for employers found to be engaged in wage theft and a threat to the right of independent contactors, including tradies, to be their own boss.
Meanwhile, the introduction of the new laws meant small businesses were having to spend time and money on getting advice that they were doing the right thing at a time “when owners of labour-intensive sectors like hairdressing, beauty salons and restaurants are literally run off their feet”.
“Almost 43 per cent of small businesses are not breaking even and the majority of owners are working longer hours than average and paying themselves less than the average wage to protect their business,” he said.
Mr Achterstraat said small businesses had faced a raft of higher costs since July 1, including a 5.75 per cent increase in pay rates in more than 110 industry awards, and the 0.5 per cent increase in the superannuation guarantee paid by employers on top of their base salary.
These two changes combined meant a small business with 15 staff would see a total cost increase of $84,375 per year plus an additional $4285 in payroll tax.
Mr Achterstraat said small businesses looking to employ skilled labour from overseas, such as cooks and hairdressers, were finding it more difficult because of the 30 per cent increase in the base rate required to access a skilled migrant, from $53,900 to $70,000.
“This has completely priced out many in the hair salon and beauty salon owners from sourcing workers from overseas and, for a restaurant with four cooks, their costs will increase by $1240 per week.”
Mr Achterstraat said small businesses with turnovers below $3m a year were also having to cope with the requirements of the Privacy Act, which they had previously been exempt from.
“The latest data from the ABS showed that in the June quarter over 100,000 businesses exited the economy – that is over 1000 businesses closing per day, and they are the ones we know about,” he said. “Without policies that support small business growth and reduce red tape, this figure risks increasing and stifling the next wave of entrepreneurs from starting small businesses.”
Joseph Healy, chief executive of Judo Bank, which specialises in lending to small businesses, said small businesses were having to cope with an increasing amount of regulation at a time when interest rates were rising and costs were increasing as a result of inflation.
“The propensity of governments to add additional regulatory burdens at this time is very unhelpful and is not empathetic to the challenges that small businesses are facing at the moment,” he said.
While Mr Healy said some businesses were struggling more than others, the problems from increasing regulations by governments was a general problem facing small business. “The burden has increasingly worsened over years which is particularly tough on small businesses.”
Policy makers were looking at each piece of new regulation in isolation and not seeing the big picture of how it affected small business, Mr Healy said. The increasing pressure of regulation on small business could become more evident over the next year as the impact of higher interest rates took its toll on the economy.
He said the impact of increased regulation was discouraging new investments by small businesses as they struggled to cope. “The combination of increasing interest rates and inflationary pressures and regulatory pressures is causing a lot of small businesses to press pause on decisions to expand and invest.
“That is not a good thing. “We are going into a challenging period for small business as the economy slows.
“The additional regulation adds more of a burden on what is an already overburdened small business sector.”
NAB business and private banking group executive Andrew Irvine said small businesses were having to deal with increasing red tape and regulation.
“The importance of SMEs to a healthy and thriving Australian economy cannot be overstated,” he said. “They are the backbone of our economy, employ two in every three Australian workers and are the ultimate drivers of economic growth.
“I talk to thousands of small business owners each year and the themes are common: red tape and regulation, being paid promptly, finding and paying staff, and increasingly fraud and scams.”
Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra said small retailers were concerned at the compounding nature of regulatory change in Australia.
“All businesses are being impacted by an increase in red tape but small businesses are disproportionately impacted because they have to invest the same effort into managing their compliance obligations as a much larger business without the resources,” he said.
“It’s not just industrial relations, or sustainability measures or changes to the Privacy Act – it’s the combined and compounding impact of all these changes happening in quick succession and sometimes at the same time.”
Mr Zahra said Australia was only ranked 14th in the World Bank’s rankings for ease of doing business. “The complexity of doing business looks set to amplify if the federal government’s ‘Closing the Loopholes’ legislation passes next year,” he said.
“We need to be extremely careful with any policy changes that could potentially drive price increases or result in added complexity for businesses – many of whom already struggle to comprehend the existing regulatory framework.”
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Tearing open cover-up of DNA lab’s Project 13
The John Tonge centre has been notorious for 20 years
A new commission of inquiry will be launched into a catastrophically flawed DNA extraction method that has been blamed for samples failing to identify Shandee Blackburn’s killer in 2013 and that may have denied Queensland victims of crime crucial evidence for nine years.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has commissioned a short and sharp public inquiry after weeks of revelations in The Australian that have raised doubts about test results in thousands more criminal cases, and that have rocked the new management of the state’s DNA lab.
New and serious allegations against the lab have emerged since the end of retired judge Walter Sofronoff’s landmark commission of inquiry last year, triggered by painstaking investigations by forensic biologist Kirsty Wright and The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story.
Ms Fentiman said on Wednesday that she had appointed retired Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett SC to conduct the inquiry, amid concerns about conflicts of interest in a high-powered advisory board that has only just been set up to watch over the lab.
“This new inquiry will ensure a transparent and comprehensive review of matters raised after the original inquiry and is in line with the Queensland Government’s commitment to rebuilding the state’s forensic and DNA testing processes,” Ms Fentiman told The Australian.
Dr Bennett is the former president of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences, and was a commissioner on the National Natural Disaster Arrangements inquiry.
She will hold public hearings and be able to call witnesses to give evidence under oath.
Her final report and recommendations from the new DNA inquiry are due to be completed by November 17 this year.
The inquiry’s terms of reference will include reviewing recent public statements and other documents about a flawed automated DNA extraction method introduced in the lab in 2007, and whether recommendations from the previous inquiry are sufficient to address the matter.
The Australian last month revealed the lab implemented the extraction method despite knowing it was catastrophically failing to recover DNA, and that it may have missed crucial evidence in serious crimes for nine years.
About 100,000 crime scene samples would have been processed using variations of the automated method, which saved the lab time and was implemented in a period of intense pressure from the courts, government and public to deal with testing delays and backlogs, Dr Wright said.
The method has been blamed by Dr Wright for the failure to recover evidence in, and to solve, Blackburn’s brutal stabbing murder as she walked home from work in Mackay in central Queensland.
The new scientist in charge of the lab, Linzi Wilson-Wilde, has been drawn into the scandal because she examined the extraction method for the Sofronoff inquiry and failed in her expert report to detail the serious problems it was having in recovering DNA.
In her work for the inquiry, Professor Wilson-Wilde reviewed a “Project 13” report from August 2008 that showed the automated method was recovering up to 92 per cent less DNA than a manual method.
The Project 13 report’s abstract recommended the automated method be introduced after falsely claiming results were “comparable” to the manual method.
Dr Wright on Wednesday night said she “welcomed the government’s announcement to open an independent inquiry into Project 13”.
“I believe it is the only way to get to the truth behind the original decision in 2007 to implement the failed method, to correctly identify all cases that were affected by the failed method, and to ensure they are properly reviewed and tested,” Dr Wright said.
“The enormity of this issue is still hard to comprehend for the average Queenslander.
“The inquiry’s findings may lead to tens of thousands of victims getting another chance of justice, and tens of thousands of violent offenders being removed from our streets. It really is that serious.”
Blackburn’s mother, Vicki, and Dr Wright say they have lost confidence in Professor Wilson-Wilde and have called for her to quit.
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Editorial: State government housing policy on the fly as crisis continues
Women and children are having to shelter in tent villages in Brisbane and workers with jobs are forced to live out of their cars – such is the dire nature of the housing crisis.
It is one of the most serious issues facing the state and deserves a level of attention commensurate with that fact. This is why it is saddening to reveal the seemingly cavalier approach taken by the Palaszczuk government to this crisis in the lead-up to last year’s Housing roundtable – convened as a direct result of The Courier-Mail’s reporting on the issue.
As we report today, a Right to Information search reveals that in the 24 hours before the roundtable, the government was rushing to cobble together a plan so it had a project to announce on the day.
The plan was to refurbish vacant student accommodation at Griffith University’s Mount Gravatt campus into 200 crisis accommodation beds – with the Premier saying in the accompanying press release that “the stories of people without secure housing are heartbreaking”.
But as the months dragged on nothing happened – other than $2.1m being spent on early works – before the plan was ultimately dumped in April. The reason was the accommodation could not be brought up to fire safety codes, a basic requirement.
The shambolic nature of the planning is revealed in the text messages disclosed by the RTI release between director-general of the state development department Mike Kaiser, university staff, and Griffith Chancellor Andrew Fraser – a former Labor state treasurer.
They show a scheme seemingly being concocted without planning, investigation or due diligence.
The government may seek to argue that it was the university which approached them with the plan some time earlier, but the now-public text messages blow this argument out of the water. In fact, there was palpable shock from one Griffith University staffer when told the day before the summit that the state intended to take control of the accommodation the next week.
One staff member noted that the government had previously been “lukewarm” on the idea, before the whole project appeared to be locked in via a flurry of texts and emails between 1pm on September 15 and 8am on September 16 – when Griffith University agreed to the terms of the agreement.
That was just five hours before the announcement was made.
People’s very lives and safety were and are at stake, yet the government was seemingly cramming its homework at the last minute on its big announcement out of the summit.
It was rushed and then resources wasted on it which could have been better used developing real plans.
The $2.1m spend, while relatively small in the scheme of the budget, was a complete waste.
Think of the good that money could have done for a charity organisation actually on the front lines of helping people going through homelessness.
The RTI release shows the events which took place in this sorry saga would have been more at home in a satire, rather than the actions of a third-term government.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was right when she said the stories of people’s struggles were heartbreaking.
Yet the actions, or lack thereof, taken by the government do not show the proper consideration that this issue deserves.
And the biggest shame is that the government appears to still think this is a crisis that will just go away.
The lack of a plan of any real substance a year on from that first housing summit is striking. It is simply not good enough.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
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