Showing posts with label aged care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aged care. Show all posts
Monday 8 April 2019
The Morrison Government's Budget 2019-20 appears to be fooling very few
By 26 August
2018 North
Coast Voices was posting this……
On this
list are individuals who have:
* not yet
been approved for home care;
* been
previously assessed and approved, but who have not yet been assigned a home
care package; or
* are
receiving care at an interim level awaiting assignment of a home care package
at their approved level.
Waiting
time is calculated from the date of a home care package approval and this is
not a an ideal situation, given package approval times range from est. 27 to 98
days and the time taken to approve high level home care packages is now [more] than twelve months - with actual delivery
dates occurring at least 12 months later on average….
By June 2017 New South
Wales had the largest number of persons on the home care waiting list at
30,685.
Given the high number of
residents over 60 years of age in regional areas like the Northern Rivers, this
waiting list gives pause for thought.
This was the
Morrison Government announcement of 17 December 2018 reported online…….
Community
Care Review
magazine, 17 December 2018:
The federal government
has announced $553 million in aged care spending including the release of
10,000 home care packages and increased residential supplements for the
homeless and people in regional areas.
The splash-out is a
centerpiece of the federal government’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook,
which forecasts a return to budget surplus and a raft of new aged care spending
initiatives.
The new high-care home
care packages will be available within weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said. Funding will be split across 5,000 level 3 and 5,000 level 4 care
packages, providing up to $50,000 per person in services each year.
This is the Morrison
Government pretending that the 10,000 aged care packages it announced last year
are a new round of age care packages in Budget 2019-20……
Budget Papers 2019-20:
To support older
Australians who choose to remain in their own homes for longer, the Government
is providing $282.4 million for 10,000 home care packages….
However, not everyone
was fooled……
The
Conversation,
2 April 2019:
In aged care, the government
will fund 10,000 home care packages, which have been previously announced, at a
cost of $282 million over five years, and will allocate $84 million for carer
respite. But long wait times for home care packages remain.
Tuesday 12 February 2019
The lies Liberals tell on the subject of aged care
The
Australian, 7
February 2019:
Aged Care Minister Ken
Wyatt was handed a departmental briefing report showing the “winners and
losers” from the Coalition’s $2 billion savings drive in the aged-care sector
shortly after Scott Morrison announced a royal commission and denied funding
cuts.
Documents obtained by
The Australian under Freedom of Information laws show the proportion of
“losers” almost tripled to 53 per cent following the budget savings revealed in
late 2015.
In the three-year period
to 2018, aged-care services that had been classified as “winners” almost halved
to 47 per cent, according to the brief sent to Mr Wyatt.
A series of “hot issue
briefs, question time briefs and general briefs” sent to Mr Wyatt last year
acknowledged the budget hit to the Aged Care Funding Instrument — which is the
basic taxpayer care subsidy paid to all nursing homes — together with
“increasing cost pressures will be putting pressure on the sector”.
Mr Wyatt was also made
aware of reports of “cut backs to staffing”. At a press conference announcing
the royal commission into aged care in September, the Prime Minister was questioned about two cuts to the
ACFI in the 2015 mid-year economic update and the 2016 budget but denied any
had been made.
“No, no, the Labor Party said that. I don’t accept that,”
he said.
Two days later, a question time brief prepared for Mr Wyatt offered advice on
what to say if asked about funding cuts to ACFI.
The ministerial brief
also contains a breakdown of funding changes by domain, revealing that average
annual taxpayer subsidies per resident increased by just $400 between 2016-17
and 2017-18 despite the growing frailty and complexity of Australians as they
enter residential aged care older than ever before.
For the first time,
funding for the two areas that provide extra boosts for nursing home residents
with significant behavioural problems and complex healthcare requirements went
backwards by $300 a person.
The peak body for
aged-care providers, ahead of the April 2 budget, has urged the Coalition to
include an additional payment of almost $700 million each year.
“This estimate reflects
a range of factors, including the value of foregone indexation (through ACFI),”
Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) says in its pre-budget submission, seen
by The Australian. “This is approximately a 5.2 per cent increase in
residential care funding in 2019-20, noting that this is difficult to calculate
as forward estimates for residential and home care are no longer separately
reported.” LASA said it considered the money to be a “down payment” and a
notably larger funding boost might be needed following the findings of the
royal commission.” The commission, which is due to release its interim report
in October and the final version by the end of April 2020, has already
highlighted the widespread industry practice of “doping” nursing home
residents, which doctors, nurses and consumer groups attribute to overworked
staff. [my yellow highlighting]
Friday 1 February 2019
Scott Morrison and his cronies want to buy your vote ahead of the May 2019 Australian federal election
Despite there being a growing urgency to invest in the full range
of climate change mitigation measures, in the face of evidence
that it is going to take billions of dollars to step back from the developing
environmental, social and economic disaster developing in the Murray-Darling
Basin, regardless of constant cost cutting in the welfare
sector leading to a fall in services for older Australians and those
with disabilities, while all the while failing to confront a growing
public debt which now stands at est. 679.5 billion, the Morrison
Lib-Nats Coalition Government intends to try and buy votes ahead of
the May 2019 federal election.
Brisbane
Times, 28
January 2019:
The Morrison government
is now more focused on protecting its electoral chances than the nation's
finances with claims it is going on a pre-poll spending spree based on a
short-term boost in tax collections.
Deloitte Access
Economics said in a quarterly report out on Tuesday that Scott Morrison is
looking to buy back disappointed voters, with the government sitting on $9.2
billion worth of tax cuts and handouts that were included in the December
mid-year budget update but not announced.
Deloitte Access partner
Chris Richardson said the government had promised $16 billion in extra spending
and tax cuts in the past six months, the biggest short-term spend by a
government since Kevin Rudd in 2009 in the depths of the global financial
crisis.
He said with the budget
in a reasonable condition on the back of strong global growth and a surge in
company tax profits, the Morrison government had made a decision to woo back
voters with taxpayers' cash.
"Of late, the
government has been busily taking decisions that add to spending and cut taxes,
thereby worsening the bottom line rather than repairing it," he said.
"After all, they've
got the dollars to do it, they're behind in the polls and the election is just
around the corner.
"That powerful
combination of motive and opportunity means that the government's focus has
shifted to shoring up its electoral standing rather than shoring up the
nation's finances."
News.com.au, 24 January 2019;
Pensioners and some
families could receive one-off cash payments from the Morrison government in a
pre-election sweetener.
Senior advisers are
looking at two one-off payments that could be included in the April 2 budget,
the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday.
If the government
decides to go ahead with the plan, the payments could be distributed before the
federal election, which is due by mid-May.
The first option is a
one off handout to age pensioners and the second is a cash injection for
families.
It’s believed the single
payments would be aimed at luring those who won’t directly benefit from the
Coalition’s $144 billion personal income tax cuts being phased in over the next
six years.
Monday 21 January 2019
Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety now underway
Commencing in
2016-17 when Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison was then just the Federal
Treasurer he cut $472.4 million from Aged Care funding over four years, then
followed that up with a $1.2 billion cut over the same time span.
When deteriorating
conditions in nursing homes around the country began to be reported in the
media and the Oakden scandal came to light in 2017, concerned citizens began to call for a royal commission.
The Liberal
Minister for Aged Care and Liberal MP for Hasluck Ken Wyatt was of the opinion that such an inquiry would be “a waste of time and money”.
Once Scott
Morrison realised that ABC Four Corners was about to air an exposé on aged care provision he quickly changed his mind and announced the Royal Commission into Aged Care
Quality and Safety on 16 September 2018.
The Royal Commission
into Aged Care Quality and Safety was established on 8 October 2018
by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency
General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd).
The Honourable
Richard Tracey AM RFD QC and Ms Lynelle
Briggs AO have been appointed as Royal Commissioners…
The Commissioners are
required to provide an interim report by 31 October 2019, and a final
report by 30 April 2020…
The Commissioners were appointed to be a Commission of inquiry, and
required and authorised to inquire into the following matters:
a. the quality of aged care services
provided to Australians, the extent to which those services meet the needs of
the people accessing them, the extent of substandard care being provided,
including mistreatment and all forms of abuse, the causes of any systemic
failures, and any actions that should be taken in response;
b. how best to deliver aged care services
to:
i.
people with disabilities residing in aged care facilities, including
younger people; and
ii.
the increasing number of Australians living with dementia, having regard
to the importance of dementia care for the future of aged care services;
c. the future challenges and opportunities
for delivering accessible, affordable and high quality aged care services in
Australia, including:
i.
in the context of changing demographics and preferences, in particular
people's desire to remain living at home as they age; and
ii.
in remote, rural and regional Australia;
d. what the Australian Government, aged
care industry, Australian families and the wider community can do to strengthen
the system of aged care services to ensure that the services provided are of
high quality and safe;
e. how to ensure that aged care services
are person‑centred, including through allowing people to exercise greater
choice, control and independence in relation to their care, and improving
engagement with families and carers on care‑related matters;
f. how best to deliver aged care services
in a sustainable way, including through innovative models of care, increased
use of technology, and investment in the aged care workforce and capital
infrastructure;
g. any matter reasonably incidental to a
matter referred to in paragraphs (a) to (f) or that [the Commissioners] believe
is reasonably relevant to the inquiry.
A preliminary
hearing was held in Adelaide on 18 January 2019.
At this
hearing the Commissioner Tracy stated
in part:
The
terms direct our attention to the interface between health, aged care and
disability services in urban, regional and rural areas. These issues
necessarily arise because of Australia’s changing demography. We are also
required to look at young people with disabilities residing in aged care
facilities and do our best to deliver aged care services to the increasing
number of Australians living with dementia. Part of our task is to examine
substandard care and the causes of any systemic failures that have, in the
past, affected the quality or safety of aged care services. We will consider
any actions which should be taken in response to such shortcomings in order to
avoid any repetition. This will necessarily involve us in looking at past 25
events. There have been a number of inquiries which have considered matters
that, in certain respects, fall within our terms of reference. We are not
required by the Letters Patent to inquire into matters which we are satisfied
that have been, is being or will be 30 sufficiently and appropriately dealt
with by another inquiry or investigation or a criminal or civil proceeding. As
a general rule, we do not intend to re-examine matters which have been
specifically examined in previous inquiries. We do, however, expect to examine
the changes and developments which have followed previous inquiries, as well as
the extent to which there has been implementation of recommendations from those
inquiries. Where we have different views, they will be made known.
According to ABC
News on 18 January 2018: Out of almost 2,000 Australian aged care
providers invited to shed light on the sector ahead of the royal commission,
only 83 have been forthcoming with information, the Adelaide inquiry was told.
The
Guardian on
18 January reported: Counsel assisting Peter Gray said the
commission had received more than 300 public submissions since Christmas Eve
and 81% concerned provision of care in residential facilities, with staff
ratios and substandard care the most common themes. The
federal health department has also passed on 5,000 submissions it received
before the commission’s terms of reference were set.
Commission will continue to accept submissions until at least the end of June
2019.
Details on how to make a submission can be found here.
Labels:
aged care,
elder abuse,
Health Services,
human rights,
neglect,
royal commission,
violence
Saturday 29 September 2018
Quotes of the Week
“There are some
people who seem to find it a very funny circumstance that last week, in full
daylight, and in a main street of Cooktown, two black troopers, with their
clothes in the same condition as those of a clumsy butcher’s apprentice, fresh
from the shambles, exhibited a naked black girl, not twelve years old, as their
newly caught prize. This young slave, taken by force . . . has since been
transferred, either for payment or as a gift, to a citizen in this town, whose
property she has now become. What were the circumstances that attended, or
immediately followed, her capture we do not know, nor do we very much care to
inquire ...” [ Journalist
& author Carl Feilberg writing
in the Cooktown Courier in January 1877 ]
“Adding a new level of fear and uncertainty onto that with the findings coming out of a royal commission is going to harm the community as well as the industry,” [CEO Clarence Village Ltd Duncan McKimm acting as an apologist for the aged care industry in The Daily Examiner ahead of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety]
“Adding a new level of fear and uncertainty onto that with the findings coming out of a royal commission is going to harm the community as well as the industry,” [CEO Clarence Village Ltd Duncan McKimm acting as an apologist for the aged care industry in The Daily Examiner ahead of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety]
Labels:
aged care,
Australian society,
history,
human rights,
racism,
royal commission,
violence
Tuesday 25 September 2018
Aged Care in Australia 2018: why government and the aged care industry make one want to weep in frustration
"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable
members." [Attributed
to Mahatma Ghandhi]
A little over five months ago the ABC program "4 Corners" asked people to contact its office to talk about their experience of the aged care system as staff, client or family member of an older person.
Over four thousand Australians responded and the "Who Cares?" episode was produced and then aired on national television on 17 September 2018.
The day before this episode was scheduled for viewing Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison made a rush announcement of a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety - no terms of reference and no start date specified.
This royal commission if it goes forward this year will be the 21st review of the aged care system since 1997 - that's 21 reviews in 21 years.
Twenty-one years in which not one federal or state government has come to grips with the fact that there is a two-tier care system in operation based on the older person's ability to pay.
This plays out almost as apartheid in many aged care facilities, with separate wings in the building/s, separate nursing & other staff, separate meal choices and recreational activities.
It is also twenty-one more years in which older people of limited means have been almost warehoused. Receiving at best what can only be described as benign neglect and at worst extreme abuse.
No-one appears to being asking why so many older people entering residential care die within four years of admission (with death occurring on average around 2.5 years after admission) and why there is such a high percentage of premature deaths.
The incidence of premature and therefore potentially preventable death from the 11 principal external causes identified in a 2016 epidemiological analysis is apparently not going down over time and over the last ten or so years appears to be rising.
For over two decades registered charities, consumer groups and government watchdogs have never truly comes to grips with the basic realities of this two-tier care system.
A system which sees vulnerable older people verbally abused, threatened, physically beaten and deliberately denied appropriate basic care - reports of which can be found in the records of the federal Health Care Complaints Commission, state agencies such as the Nurses and Midwifery Council of New South Wales and in the media.
The day after the "4 Corners" program went to air, one representative of a registered charity which purports to represent older Australians was on national television condemning the types of abuse revealed in this program.
However, in the next breath - and almost in denial of such widespread abuse - he was talking about the need to understand why there was also excellent care in the aged care system and how residential aged care providers which meet or exceed Commonwealth aged care standards need to be rewarded.
He talked about some aged care providers being "world class" until the interviewer brought him back to looking at the ugly truth of the situation.
He was not alone in demonstrating how difficult it is for those associated with aged care to steadily fix their gaze on this seriously flawed system and insist that it be genuinely reformed.
It is hard not to see Scott Morrison's announcement of a royal commission as one meant to pre-empt the "4 Corners" program ahead of the Wentworth by-election on 20 October 2018 - given that the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care & Liberal MP for Hasluck Ken Wyatt appeared lukewarm about the need for a royal commission into the aged care system just last month and, in the face of contrary evidence the Prime Minister continues to deny the controversial federal funding cuts to the sector by way a tweak of the Aged Care Funding Instrument to the tune of $1.2 billion in efficiency savings in the 2018-19 Budget.
Sunday 26 August 2018
Waiting for home care in Australia in 2018
There are now 108,000 older Australians on the
waiting list for Home Care Packages.
On this list
are individuals who have:
*
not yet been approved for home care;
*
been previously assessed and approved, but who have not yet been assigned a
home care package; or
* are receiving care at an interim level
awaiting assignment of a home care package at their approved level.
Waiting time
is calculated from the date of a home care package approval and this is not a
an ideal situation, given package approval times range from est. 27 to 98 days
and the time taken to approve high level home care packages is now than twelve
months - with actual delivery dates occurring at least 12 months later on average.
Labor’s Shadow
Minister for Ageing and Mental Health issued a statement which pointed out that
“With
the waiting list growing by almost 4,000 older Australians in just three
months, the 3,500 new home care packages a year committed in the Budget won’t
come close to keeping pace with demand”.
With more
than half the applications for permanent entry into residential aged care taking
more than 3 and up to 8 months to be met, this is not going to be a go-to first
option in any solution for this lengthy home care waiting list - even if enough older people could be persuaded to give up the last of their independnce and autonomy.
By June 2017
New South Wales had the largest number of persons on the home care waiting
lis at 30,685.
Given the
high number of residents over 60 years of age in regional areas like the the
Northern Rivers, this waiting list gives pause for thought.
Then there is
this side effect of the waiting list and home care start dates identified by Leading
Age Care Services Australia (LAGSA):
Consumers with unmet
needs and unspent funds
LASA has undertaken an extensive review of the
disparity that exists in the current release of HCP assignments, noting that
there are substantial numbers of consumers on HCPs with either unmet needs or unspent
funds . This bimodal distribution of home care package assignments reflects a
mismatch between consumer package assignment and a consumer’s current care
needs. The mismatch appears to be a function of the extended lapse of time that
exists between approval assessments and package assignments. Until this dynamic
is sufficiently addressed by Government, LASA expects that providers will be
faced with a unique set challenges in 2018 when providing care to HCP
consumers. This is likely to increase the need for regular care plan reviews in
the context of unmet needs and unspent funds. This dynamic could be considered
more closely within the context of developing a single assessment workforce.
Thus far Australian Minister for Aged Care and Liberal MP for Hasluck Ken
Wyatt is offering no insight into federal government thinking on this
issue.
Sources:
Monday 7 May 2018
Elder abuse and profit shifting go hand-in-hand in the age care sector?
Any
regular reader of online news would have seen mentions of elder abuse, neglect
and sub-standard health care over the years.
hellocaremail.com.au, 2017:
Elder abuse is a
critical issue in aged care homes, with thousands of cases reported to the
Health Department every year…. In 2016-2017, there were 2853 reports of
“reportable assaults’’ and 2463 allegations of “unreasonable use of force”.
Australian
Law Reform Commission, Elder Abuse (DP 83), Abuse
and neglect in aged care, 12 December 2016:
1.34 Stakeholders
reported many instances of abuse of people receiving aged care. These included
reports of abuse by paid care workers[55] and
other residents of care homes[56] as
well as by family members and/or appointed decision makers of care recipients.[57] For
example, Alzheimer’s Australia provided the following examples of physical and
emotional abuse:
When working as a PCA
[personal care assistant] in 2 high care units, I witnessed multiple, daily
examples of residents who were unable to communicate being abused including:
PCA telling resident to ‘die you f---ing old bitch!’ because she resisted being
bed bathed. Hoist lifting was always done by one PCA on their own not 2 as per
guidelines and time pressures meant PCAs often using considerable physical
force to get resistive people into hoists; resident not secured in hoist
dropped through and broke arm—died soon after; residents being slapped,
forcibly restrained and force-fed or not fed at all; resident with no relatives
never moved out of bed, frequently left alone for hours without attention;
residents belongings being stolen and food brought in by relatives eaten by
PCAs.[58]
1.35 The
ALRC also received reports of other forms of abuse, including sexual[59] and
financial abuse.[60] Restrictions
on movement[61] and
visitation[62] were
also reported. Many submissions also identified neglect of care recipients.[63]
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
15 October 2017:
Across NSW, 58 per cent
of aged care workers surveyed said they have not been able to provide the level
of care residents deserved because of budget cuts. Of those, 80 per cent said
staff shortages were the main barrier to providing proper care.
The
Courier-Mail,
19 April 2018:
PROFIT-HUNGRY aged care
companies are charging fat “administration fees” to skim up to 40 per cent of
government payments for in-home nursing care.
More than 100,000
elderly Australians are on a waiting list to receive as much as $50,000 a year
in a “homecare package” to pay for nursing, housekeeping or companionship
at home. But an investigation by The Courier-Mail has revealed
that some home-care companies are pocketing as much as $19,000 of the
taxpayer cash through hefty “administration” or “case management” fees.
The fees are billed on
top of hourly charges for home help – leaving clients with less cash
to spend on in-home care such as nursing. And if clients want to
switch to a cheaper provider, they are being slugged up to $1000 in “exit
fees”.
The Age, 3 May 2018:
Scandals, including a
recent national audit showing 600 aged-care homes failed in the past
five years to provide minimum standards, prompted a government review. The
Coalition, accepting a key recommendation, has ended the ridiculous practice of
alerting operators to spot checks. The review also urged the streamlining and
strengthening of the regulator.
If one does a
simple online search many of the big ‘for profit’ aged care providers are named
in relation to such abuse, neglect and sub-standard health care allegations.
Now in May
2018 the Tax Justice Network[1] is looking at aged care
provision from another angle. One which shows that the budgetary meanness which sees these big companies expect elderly residents to remain in sodden incontinence pads or live-off meagre meal rations occurs in spite of the millions in profit made on the back of billions in taxpayer funding of the age care sector.
It has
released A Tax Justice Network – Australia Report, TAX
AVOIDANCE BY
FOR-PROFIT AGED CARE COMPANIES: PROFIT SHIFTING ON PUBLIC FUNDS.
Sadly, this
report only confirms the fact that corporate greed runs rampant through all major
aspects of Australian life, including aged care.
Executive Summary, Background, p.5:
Older
people are a growing proportion of Australia’s population; in 2016, 15% (one in
seven) Australians were aged 65 years or older. By 2056 this percentage is
expected to grow to 22% (8.7 million).1 The need for aged care services is
increasing. Between 2015– 2016 almost 214,000 people entered aged care in Australia.
On average, older people in Australia spend three years in permanent
residential care, just over two years in home care, and one and a half months
in respite care.2 The Australian tax payer, via the Commonwealth Government
contributes around 75% of the expenditure in aged care in Australia, which is
around 96% of the total funding on aged care from Commonwealth and State
Governments. Government recurrent spending on aged care services in Australia
was $17.4 billion Australian dollars (AUD) in 2016- 2017, with residential aged
care services accounting for 69.3% ($12.1 billion AUD).3 Some of this funding
is provided as subsidies to aged care provider companies including those that
operate for profit. In 2018 the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation
(ANMF), Australia’s largest national professional and industrial nursing and
midwifery organisation with over 268,500 members, commissioned the Tax Justice
Network - Australia to analyse possible tax avoidance by for-profit aged care
companies and to provide recommendations for improving transparency on
Government spending on for-profit aged care.
Key points from the
report
*
By number of beds, not-for-profit providers are the largest aged care provider
group in Australia (52% in 2013-2014), however there has been a rapid growth in
the size and spread of for-profit companies; Bupa, Opal, Regis and Estia are
the largest aged care providers nationally. If Japara and Allity are included,
these 6 for-profit companies operate over 20% of residential aged care beds in
Australia.
*
In the most recent year (mostly the 2017 financial year) the six largest
for-profit companies were given over $2.17 billion AUD via government
subsidies. This was 72% of their total revenue of over $3 billion. These
companies also reported profits of $210 million AUD (2016-2018).
*
Companies can use various accounting methods to avoid paying tax. One method is
when a company links (staples) two or more businesses (securities) they own
together, each security is treated separately for tax purposes to reduce the
amount of tax the company has to pay. Aged care companies are known to use this
method as well as other tax avoiding practices. Another practice is by
“renting” their aged care homes from themselves (one security rents to another)
or by providing loans between securities and shareholders.
*
The six largest for-profit aged care providers have enormous incomes and
profits:
* The largest company, BUPA, had
almost $7.5 billion in total income in Australia (2015-16) but paid only $105
million in tax on a taxable income of only $352 million.
* BUPA’s Australian aged care business
made over $663 million in 2017 and over 70% ($468 million) of this was from
government funding.
* Funding from government and resident
fees increased in 2017, but BUPA paid almost $3 million less to their employees
and suppliers.
* The second largest, Opal, had total
income of $527.2 million in 2015-16 but paid only $2.4 million in tax on a
taxable income of only $7.9 million.
* 76% ($441 million) was from government
funding in 2016.
*
Allity had total income of $315.6 million in 2015-16 and paid no tax.
* 67% ($224 million) of Allity’s
revenue was from government funding in 2016-17.
*
Regis, Estia, and Japara are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)
but appear to be using methods to reduce the amount of tax they pay while
earning large profits from over $1 billion of government subsidies.
*
Family owned aged care companies (Arcare, TriCare, and Signature) receive
between $42-$160 million each in annual government subsidies but provide very
little public information on their operations and financial performance and may
use accounting methods to avoid paying tax.
* (All figures quoted above are in AUD)
*
The Australian Government and the Federal Opposition (the Australian Labor
Party) have proposed several ways to fix the problems with companies avoiding
tax by using trust structures and other methods but there are still loopholes.
*
It is difficult to get a detailed and complete picture of the full extent to
which these heavily subsidised aged care companies are avoiding paying as much
tax as they should, because Australian law is not currently strong enough to
ensure that their financial records and accounting practices are publicly
available and fully transparent.
Conclusion
The
six largest for-profit aged care providers in Australia received over $2.17
billion AUD in annual tax payer funded subsidies which provided after tax
profits of $210 million AUD. The actual operating profits were much larger.
These providers only paid around $154 million AUD in tax in 2015-16. Companies
that receive millions of tax payer dollars via Australian government subsidies
must be required by law to meet higher standards of transparency in financial
reports and be publicly accountable. The report calls upon the Government,
Opposition, and cross-bench Senators to work together to make laws to stop aged
care providers from avoiding the taxes they should pay and provide clear
records of their business dealings.
The
Tax Justice Network – Australia strongly supports recent government legislation
that has been introduced to close loopholes in the Multinational Anti-Avoidance
Law and government reforms to stapled structures. However, there is still a
need for additional transparency measures. The Tax Justice Network – Australia
also strongly supports a policy proposed by the Australian Labor Party to
introduce minimum taxation of discretionary trusts. These reform measures are
examined in more detail by this report in the section: Current Reform Measures.
This
analysis of tax payments and corporate structures of the largest for-profit
aged care companies provides clear evidence that simple common-sense reforms
are needed immediately to restore integrity to the tax system and to ensure
public accountability on billions of dollars in government spending.
RECOMMENDATIONS
FROM THE REPORT
Any
company that receives Commonwealth funds over $10 million in any year must file
complete audited annual financial statements with Australian Securities and
Investments Commission (ASIC) in full compliance with all Australian Accounting
Standards and not be eligible for Reduced Disclosure Requirements. Public and
private companies must fully disclose all transactions between trusts or similar
parties that are part of stapled structures or similar corporate structures
where most or all income is earned from a related party and where operating
income is substantially reduced by lease and/or finance payments to related
parties with beneficial tax treatment.
Australia’s
Largest For-Profit Aged Care Companies
In
Australia, non-profit providers collectively operate a majority of residential
aged care beds. However, the market share of large for-profit providers
continues to grow rapidly. Likewise, the influence of for profit providers on
shaping government policy and influencing broader trends in the aged care
sector has never been greater. Ranked by the number of government allocated
residential aged care places (beds) in 2017, the six largest for-profit aged
care companies in Australia are; Bupa, Opal, Regis, Estia, Japara, and Allity.
Combined, they operate over 20% of all residential aged care beds in the
country. These companies continue to expand market share through new
developments and acquisitions. These companies are also expanding to provide
more retirement living and home care services, which allow access to additional
government funding. In the most recent financial year (2016-2017), these six
for-profit aged care companies combined received over $2.17 billion in
government subsidies.4 This made up 72% of their combined total revenue of over
$3 billion.5……
COMPANY
SNAPSHOT
Bupa:
A United Kingdom-based mutual insurance company with global operations
including aged care services. Australia is Bupa’s largest and most profitable
market.
Regis,
Estia, and Japara: Public aged care companies listed on the ASX.
Opal:
A private aged care company owned by subsidiaries of two listed companies, AMP
Capital and Singapore-based G.K. Goh.
Allity:
controlled by Archer Capital, an Australian private equity firm with large
foreign pension fund investors.
Arcare,
TriCare and Signature (formerly Innovative Care): three family-owned,
for-profit aged care companies.
NOTE:
1. The Tax Justice Network -
Australia is the Australian branch of the Tax Justice Network (TJN) and the
Global Alliance for Tax Justice. TJN is an independent organisation launched in
the British Houses of Parliament in March 2003. It is dedicated to high-level
research, analysis and advocacy in the field of tax and regulation. TJN works
to map, analyse and explain the role of taxation and the harmful impacts of tax
evasion, tax avoidance, tax competition and tax havens. TJN’s objective is to encourage
reform at the global and national levels.
Membership of the Network can be found here.
Labels:
aged care,
elder abuse,
government funding,
human rights,
multinationals,
taxation
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