Transcript by Senator the Hon Mitch Fifield

ABC 24 News Breakfast

Program: ABC 24 News Breakfast

E & OE

KENNEDY:

Major changes to the aged care system will come into effect from tomorrow on the reforms, the changes to means testing and the general overhaul of the way the Government funds residential aged care.

TRIOLI:

We are joined now by the Assistant Social Services Minister Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator, good morning thanks for making time.

FIFIELD:

Good morning

TRIOLI:

Let’s start of course with the McClure welfare review. How can the very complex area of welfare payments be reduced to just four payments without people slipping through the cracks?

FIFIELD:

You’re right Virginia it is a very complex system at the moment. If you look at the Australian Government Guide to Payments it’s 44 pages long. And that’s the simplified and easy to access version. We’ve got in excess of 20 payments and in excess of 50 supplements. So it’s a very confusing and difficult system for people to navigate. What our objective is, is to try and help those people with their hands up who want to work, to get into work. And that’s why Mr McClure, who’s proposed that there be four payments, that there be the aged care payment, that there be the disability support pension, that there be a child payment and that there be a working age payment. So that we can have these better targeted, better focused. So that we can concentrate on the best ways to support people into work.

KENNEDY:

It’s simplifying that though, is it not dangerous simplifying peoples conditions, people with disabilities and labelling them?

FIFIELD:

Look, we don’t want to label people, and in fact I think one of the biggest problems at the moment is, as one prominent disability activist referred to, is the soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to people with disability. There are over 800,000 people on the Disability Support Pension and a lot of those people have the capacity to work, and a lot of those people want to work. Something that really frustrates me is the scaremongering by the Opposition at the moment. We’re not about penalising people. We supported the previous Government when they changed the impairment tables for the disability support pension. And I would hope that the Opposition could see their way to putting the issue of payment support beyond partisan politics. This is too important. There are people with disability who want to work. We want to help them to work.

TRIOLI:

Senator, if any other Government, including even previous LNP Governments, had been able to reduce this complex system to just four payments, it logically follows that they would have done so, it would have saved them a hell of a lot of time and money. The logic from that is that you can’t do it and keep everyone safe in that system, and particularly at a time when this Government is trying to cut back its budget enormously. Isn’t this just a way of saving you money?

FIFIELD:

No not at all.

TRIOLI:

But it will save you money?

FIFIELD:

The prime objective is to help people into work. Now, you hope that if you put people into a job, that you won’t have as many people on Newstart, that you won’t have as many people on the Disability Support Pension. But our overwhelming objective is to help people into work and obviously a by-product of that is fewer people on Newstart, fewer people on the DSP and that’s something that everyone would support.

TRIOLI:

But there is two parts to that approach. There’s actually getting them off the welfare payments which saves you money, and there is having the jobs there in system for them to go to. So what are the measures to try and create the jobs?

FIFIELD:

Well, one issue which I touched on before is attitude. I think as a community we need to change our attitude towards people who have a disability. But we’ve also got to make sure the programs that we have, like the disability employment service, are doing the job that they’re meant to do. And that is to help people who have a disability, who don’t have a job, into work. We’ve got to get better on the side of the services that will actually help people into work. This is why, we’re looking at the entire spread of services for people who aren’t in work. Not just the payments they receive but also the measures that can help them into work.

KENNEDY:

Are you trying to change the attitude of some people you see at slackers who aren’t looking for work.

FIFIELD:

We want people in work. And we want to support people who have their hand up, who say they want to work to get into work. I spend a lot of my working days talking to people with disabilities and they want to work. They’re keen to work. And what Mr McClure’s examination is all about is seeing, what are the impediments. What are the things that are stopping people who want to work, getting into work. Now we are going to have a six week period of consultation. we want to hear from Australians with disability. We want to hear from a wide range of organisations who support people, what they think of what Mr McClure has floated so that we can come up with a better system. Now, what’s the alternative? That we do nothing? That we say that what we are doing at the moment is the best that we can possibly do? I don’t think that’s good enough for Australians that aren’t in work, who want to work.

TRIOLI:

Let’s talk about the aged care system because changes come into effect from tomorrow is the main reason you’re here this morning. The Gillard Government changes are coming to effect. But the new system is being described by Derek McMillan, the Chief Executive of Retirement Living and Australian Unity as creating a more complex, more difficult to navigate system in some cases. Which is in a system that’s already very complicated. Do you share those concerns? Do you think it overcomplicates an already difficult system?

FIFIELD:

Look it is a complex system.

TRIOLI:

You can reduce the system down to four things?.

FIFIELD:

Anyone who’s had an experience with a family member who has gone into aged care, they’ll tell you it is difficult to negotiate. But what these changes, which are coming in tomorrow, seek to do is to provide more and better information to consumers. So for the first time, providers will be required to put on the My Aged Care website, their product offerings and what their prices are to make it easier for people to compare what is available.

TRIOLI:

But his specific criticism is that he says under the new system it’s possible now for someone to organise their finances to end up paying a smaller means tested co-contribution to the cost of their care than previously, now that would seem to totally contradict the point of putting a new system in place if that’s the case. Is that true? Can someone now cleverly reorganise their finances to be means tested at a lower rate?

FIFIELD:

We haven’t yet reached aged care nirvana. I’m the first to recognise that.

TRIOLI:

That’s a yes to that question?

FIFIELD:

What we’re achieving with the changes on the 1st of July is a fairer system than currently exists. At the moment if you are seeking aged care accommodation, only your assets are considered. If you’re seeking care, only your income is considered. So what we’re moving to is a combined means test where both assets and income are taken into consideration. And what that means is that there are people who will be paying, if they are coming into the aged care system from tomorrow, who will be paying more than they would have been under the previous arrangements. But it’s important to emphasise that the changes that are coming in only apply to people coming in from tomorrow. People who are already in the aged care system, their circumstances won’t change at all.

TRIOLI:

So is Derek McMillan right?

FIFIELD:

Well it’s difficult without having a particular scenario. There are a lot of variables. You need to know someone’s income. You need to know their assets. You need to know the choices that they’ll make. And what will help people do that is the fee estimator on the My Aged Care website. People can plug in their assets, they can plug in their income, and that will give them a good indication of what they’ll be required to pay in terms of accommodation, and what they’ll be required to pay in terms of care.

KENNEDY:

On another matter, is it significant that some backbenchers are interested in scrapping RET?

FIFIELD:

We are a party that encourages a contribution to public debate. Unlike our opponents on the other side, we don’t try to run a Stalinist operation.

KENNEDY:

Is it a significant split?

FIFIELD:

No, look we are having a review of the RET. There is a report that’s coming and we’re encouraging colleagues input into that.

TRIOLI:

Should there be one part of the industry, the manufacturing industry that is totally exempt from it?

KENNEDY:

What do you think?

FIFIELD:

Well, I’m a Victorian and have a keen interest in the sustainability of the industry that we have here in this state. But I’m the disability and aged care minister so I’ll leave policy in this area to my good friend Greg Hunt.

TRIOLI:

Mitch Fifield good to talk to you thanks so much.

FIFIELD:

Thanks.