Trying to bring probity and ethics back into the ranks of the Australian Public Service in 2023

 

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit is constituted by the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act 1951. The Committee initiates its own inquiries into public administration matters and can conduct inquiries into matters referred to it by either House of Parliament.

The breakdown of the current membership of the Joint Committee is:

Five Upper House Senators – 3 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Nationals; and

Nine Lower House MPs – 6 Labor, 1 Liberal, 2 Liberal-Nationals.

This new inquiry into probity and ethics within the Australian Public Sector was referred to the Joint Committee by the Department of the House of Representatives.

Inquiry into probity and ethics in the Australian Public Sector

On 27 June 2023, the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit adopted an inquiry into probity and ethics in the Australian Public Sector, with a view to examining whether there are systemic factors contributing to poor ethical behaviour in government agencies, and identifying opportunities to strengthen government integrity and accountability.

The inquiry will have particular regard to any matters contained in or connected to the following Auditor-General Reports:

• No. 30 of 2022–23, Probity Management in Financial Regulators — Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

• No. 36 of 2022–23, Probity Management in Financial Regulators — Australian Securities and Investments Commission

• No. 38 of 2022–23, Probity Management in Financial Regulators — Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

• No. 31 of 2022–23, Administration of the Community Health and Hospitals Program — Department of Health and Aged Care

• No. 18 of 2022-23, Acquisition, Management and Leasing of Artworks by Artbank — Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

The Committee invites submissions to the inquiry addressing the terms of reference by Friday, 25 August 2023.

Committee Secretariat contact:

Committee Secretary

Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit

PO Box 6021

Parliament House

Canberra ACT 2600

Phone: +61 2 6277 4615

jcpaa@aph.gov.au

Dr. Scott Burchill on the subject of "Problems in Australian Journalism" - a timely reminder in the middle of this 2022 federal election campaign

 

Dr. Scott Burchill, ABC Breakfast Show, 19 April 2022
SNAPSHOT IMAGE: ABC News 

From the pen of Dr. Scott Burchill, Honorary Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Education, School of Humanities & Social Science, Deakin University, at https://iranalyst.medium.com/problems-in-australian-journalism-c79573279462, 18 April 2022:

Problems in Australian Journalism

(updated and expanded)

Whether we are being directed to a news story by an editor or an algorithm, the task of filtering the dross from the insightful remains the most important challenge for those who ‘consume’ political information.

This is a much more important concern than perennial angst about concentrated media ownership in Australia, or whether a Royal Commission should be held into News Corporation.

Despite new media platforms provided by revolutionary advances in information technology, the structural problems facing political journalists who create the ‘content’ of these stories are mostly the same today as they were in the past.

Here are four which help to shape our views about the world outside Australia, followed by those shone into high relief by the election campaign in Australia.

Missing Context

Too many journalists have a limited capacity for critical thinking because of an impoverished historical knowledge, and therefore cannot place real time announcements and actions by governments and their opponents in any philosophical or historical context for their audiences.

This is partly the fault of journalism courses at universities, which should provide post-graduate training rather than undergraduate degrees. Journalism is not an academic discipline nor an apprenticeship, and should be seen as a skill set built on top of foundational knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.

The veracity of sources should always be tested. For example, journalists should be very sceptical of “intelligence leaks” which cannot be verified, but which sound authoritative only because they are confidential or constitute confirmation bias. Open-source material is more reliable.

Everyone who faithfully reported the phony WMD pretext for the 2003 war against Iraq should have had the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin “incident” uppermost in their minds before giving Western governments the benefit of their doubts again. How many journalists covering the lead up to the 2003 war had even heard of it? Governments lie and deceive all the time, especially about their wars. Google ‘curveball’.

The new “China” scare, including exaggerated and preposterous claims about China’s military intentions in the region, reflects a paucity of knowledge about earlier bouts of Sinophobia in the West, and would be very different discussion if the Cold War and modern Chinese history were better understood. Those following events over the last three years who have no sense of déjà vu just haven’t done their homework. A good antidote is James Peck’s Washington’s China.

The same applies to Russia’s illegal attack on Ukraine. The starting point for understanding this war, especially its timing, is NATO’s eastward expansion into Europe since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the role of the US in Ukraine since 2016. At the risk of stating the obvious, the challenge for journalists is to provide context for a better understanding of the causes of the war, not joining with governments to play the blame game. Unfortunately, how the attack on Ukraine has been covered in the Western media is strikingly similar to the way the 9/11 attacks were presented in their aftermath: context-free.

By the time a political claim is exposed as fraudulent, the media circus has moved on from ‘old news’ to another ‘new’ issue with an equally brief shelf life. This is because news and information have become disposable commodities to be consumed like fruit and vegetables. This is how capitalism treats information.

Flak and distractions are often taken at face value, uncritically reported thanks to a remarkable level of political naivety and quiescence across the Fourth Estate. Given almost everything is now searchable and recorded for posterity, there are no excuses for the success of diversionary tactics regularly undertaken by governments at the insistence of their spin doctors.

Obvious questions about policies are just not posed.

Why is this being announced now and in this way?

Which questions do the government not want asked of it?

Why is the media being steered in this direction — away from what?

What is the political motive behind this decision: who wins and who loses?

Often misconstrued as adversarial, critical journalism should be based on a comprehensive knowledge of the subject in question and a well-founded suspicion of those with power and wealth.

Overton Windows & False Balances

Journalists should continuously ask themselves: what is considered the permissible range of opinion on this subject and why is it circumscribed in the way that it has been? The Overton Window, as it is called, should be opened as widely as possible, otherwise key aspects of a topic will be misunderstood or ignored entirely.

It is always easier to repeat and recycle familiar nostrums and orthodoxies than to challenge them: the former requires no elaboration or any examples, while the latter takes time to explain and will confuse and confound pre-existing assumptions.

Alternative accounts must confront the tyranny of concision, which reduces detailed and complex narratives to sound-bytes and photo ops. If newspaper analysis cannot be reduced to 800 words, they must find another home where ‘long-form’ journalism is still practiced.

How does narrowing the spectrum of legitimate opinion work in practice? Here are some examples.

The discussion of politically-motivated violence, for example, presupposes that the West is always the innocent victim of terrorism but never its perpetrator. This is demonstrably untrue, but it sets the tone of the discussion to look at what is done to us rather than by us.

Why are the Pentagon’s remote controlled drone attacks on innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen portrayed as self-defence when they constitute a textbook definition of terrorism? Why is there so little interest in the role of the US spy base which Australia hosts at Pine Gap in targeting people for assassination by the United States?

Why are the occupied people of Gaza not entitled to self-defence against Israel’s state terrorism when it periodically bombs them with US-made aircraft and munitions, acts which have turned the small strip of densely populated blockaded land into a living hell without safe drinking water? Why are incidents in a one-sided occupation described as “clashes”, implying some equality of power?

Why is Iran described as a rogue state which sponsors terrorism in the Middle East when its scientists and officials are routinely murdered by Mossad agents and US drones?

Given the preoccupation with Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, why can the US and Israel regularly bomb Syria without any media discussion of these violations of that country’s sovereignty? Who gave Washington the right to grant the Golan Heights, Syrian territory under international law, to Israel?

The short answer to these and many similar questions is that we judge our own actions, and those of our friends and allies, by a different set of ethical standards to the ones we apply to designated enemies. Our foreign policy is hypocritical and unprincipled, though such a view is considered “dissident”.

The very opposite should apply. As Noam Chomsky explains the basis of moral consequentialism:

People are responsible for the anticipated consequences of their choice of action (or inaction), a responsibility that extends to the policy choices of one’s own state to the extent that the political community allows a degree of influence over policy formation.

Responsibility is enhanced by privilege, by the opportunity to act with relative impunity and a degree of effectiveness.

For profession of high principles to be taken seriously, the principles must first and foremost be applied to oneself, not only to official enemies or those designated as unworthy in the prevailing political culture.

Our own behaviour, and the actions of friends and allies, should be scrutinised first. That’s where we have moral responsibility and some influence, however small. We have almost no influence on governments with which we have strained relations. It is the citizens of those states who bear responsibility for the actions of their governments, though in many cases dissent is more perilous than anything we might face: no doubt Julian Assange would demur here about the suggestion of “might”.

This is less ‘whataboutism’ and more to do with barracking for the West and supporting its interests by reinforcing existing narratives which remain unchallenged. One cost of this is the loss of our own credibility in advocating universal human rights. Another, significantly more important, is greater human suffering.

Legitimate concerns should be expressed about Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and restrictions imposed on Hong Kong and in the South China Sea, but there is very little we can do to influence decisions taken by a government we are distancing ourself from. Given China is our most important trading partner and the West must engage with Beijing if climate change is to be seriously addressed, this approach is counter-productive.

As a fellow member of the Quad and the so called ‘club of democracies’ we have much more influence over India, but Western leaders remain mute about Narendra Modi’s Hindu extremism, especially his appalling policies in Kashmir. This is because, with few exceptions such as Brian Toohey, they aren’t asked questions by the media who have easy access to them. The Morrison Government does not want to be asked about Modi’s outrages and a supine media class is happy to oblige.

The demonisation of Vladimir Putin and all things Russian, is a very different story. It goes without challenge, context or a consideration of the logical consequences of widening the cleavage between Moscow and the West.

Riyadh’s atrocities in Yemen leading to a cholera epidemic, Jakarta’s brutal 50 year repression in West Papua and Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara should be higher priorities because the West is complicit in these crimes with arms sales and diplomatic protection offered to the culprits. Again, there is silence from the media, and therefore governments are not held to account for their actions.

It’s a simple truism that concerns about human rights violations are universally expressed and applied or they are not principles at all.

Russian “election meddling” is a preoccupation of governments in the North America and Western Europe, while promiscuous US interventions in the politics of countries around the world, including the overthrow of legitimate democratic governments, attracts little if any media interest at all.

Compare China’s behaviour towards Taiwan, whose sovereign control the West acknowledges, with US behaviour towards Cuba or its “meddling” in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Or Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. Which of these violates international law and the ‘rules-based global order’ we hear the West boasts about?

Why would anyone with a knowledge of the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953 by the US and UK be surprised by Iran’s hostility to the West? Journalists should not think that history is as conveniently forgotten in these countries as it is here.

There are not always two sides to every story, with a ‘balanced’ position to be found at the ‘sensible centre’. When it comes to immunology, environmental science or the holocaust, to take only three examples, there is no range of legitimate opinion. Seeking the centre is not about being even-handed, it’s a claim that there is always a range of legitimate opinion on most subjects and safe harbour should centre on compromise: don’t pick sides. This is dangerous nonsense.

Stenography

Many journalists are too dependent on drip feeds from political elites, ranging from the unedited stenography of government ‘messaging’ to ‘exclusives’ — beating competitors to a story. Authorised leaks from incontinent MPs may be welcomed by the ideologically aligned, but they almost always come with conditions attached — usually favourable media coverage. Editors are largely to blame for this by privileging exclusivity and ‘insiderism’ over detailed analysis. It is never the role of the media to be the propaganda arm of political parties or governments.

There is nothing wrong with commentators cheering for their political team, as they openly do in Murdoch media and increasing in Nine newspapers. No-one should approach the op ed pages expecting balance or fair analysis. But when front page reporting becomes indistinguishable from government talking points, the audience is being short changed.

Too many journalists, as opposed to commentators, see nothing wrong with partisan advocacy as their job focus. In doing so they not only debase the profession, but more importantly they do their readers, listeners and viewers a grave disservice by denying them the capacity to evaluate alternative policies.

Stenography is fatal to the credibility of any journalist. If you want to be an ideologue and work for a politician and a cause, join their staff formally.

It is also boring and repetitious. According to the late international politics expert Fred Halliday, the term corkscrew journalism originated in the film The Philadelphia Story directed by George Cukor in 1940. Halliday defined it as “instant comment, bereft of research or originality, leading to a cycle of equally vacuous, staged, polemics between columnists who have been saying the same thing for the past decade, or more.” Ring any bells?

Professional Ethics

Philosophically and professionally, too many journalists have a poor understanding of their role in holding the powerful to account and how to represent their audiences. They fail to see the difference between being liked and being respected. Many want to be players and insiders, forgetting that their function is to ask the questions that their readers, listeners and viewers want posed. First and foremost, journalists are conduits for their audiences, not celebrities.

Some are willing hostages to opinion management and the public relations techniques of media minders. However, if they are to perform their roles properly, they must remain at arms-length from the subjects of their inquiries.

It’s not that difficult. They should avoid being schmoozed by drinks at The Lodge, and say no to junkets and being duchessed around the Middle East on the dime of local lobby groups acting for a foreign state. If a foreign state lobby awards a journalist a prize for their reporting, they have been fatally comprised.

Politicians and their staff are not friends to cultivate, no matter how hard they try to flatter or invite a journalist into the inner sanctums of power. Success should be measured by the enemies made amongst the powerful. The shakers and movers are always looking to co-opt the sympathetic and impressionable. After all, the overwhelming majority of leaks come from politicians not whistleblowers.

Interviewers should learn how to control verbal exchanges with media trained politicians by anticipating their tactics and working around them. They should press hard without being personal, highlighting contradictory and inconsistent remarks over time.

‘Gotcha’ moments such as Anthony Albanese’s stats “gaffe” might be tempting for journalists seeking a headline, but like fast food they are not very satisfying to information consumers. Leadership contests and elections attract subscriptions and clicks. They are headlines designed to sell audiences to advertisers, but they are usually poor substitutes for the hard slog of detailed, substantive research.

Too many journalists are comfortable with ‘personified politics’ rather than the evaluation of policies. They rigidly focus on leaders, personalities and the election race when they could easily forget the ephemeral gimmicks and photo ops which spin doctors want to see on the nightly news. Their focus should be on policies, both what is openly presented and what is deliberately concealed or omitted. Politics is a lot more than third rate entertainment for ugly people.

Journalists and editors do face significant challenges. The death of a thousand funding cuts to the leading public broadcaster, and the implied threat of future reductions linked to unfavourable political coverage, induces ABC management and journalists to be less critical of the government of the day, especially hostile and suspicious LNP governments. Consequently, they position themselves in the “sensible centre” which is actually the conservative right, and become increasing indistinguishable from their privately-owned competitors.

Technical competence is emphasised and privileged at the expense of intellectual knowledge, background preparation and professional skill. Mouse clicks, page views and social media feedback now structure the delivery of news content and analysis.

One consequence of this during an election campaign is a shrinking insular media bubble, where dubious opinion polls, headlines, partisan barracking, ‘who won the week?’ and the daily agenda repeat themselves in an endless and co-ordinated loop. The underlying assumption is that the horse race will be decided inside the bubble, not outside where the great unwashed are starved of serious policy discussion and evaluation. That is why insider status is so highly valued by journalists: they can be players, not just observers. On the odd occasion when policy analysis leaks outside the bubble, it is invariably refracted through the question of how this will influence the vote rather than whether the policy might be good or bad for the country. This amounts to professional misconduct.

Calls for a Royal Commission into News Corporation assume there are problems with the media in Australia that can only be uncovered through an investigation by the Crown. Yet there is probably very little that isn’t already well known.

Anti-competitive practices are there for everyone to see. The alignment of business interests with right wing opinion and calls for the privatisation of the ABC are neither new nor subtle. The concentration of media ownership is hardly secret, but at a time when private media owners struggle to build viable business models, greater diversity in the mainstream isn’t coming any time soon. Besides, thanks to the internet there are more sources of information available to the curious today than at any time in history. They are often superior to the mainstream.

If journalists were more diligent and professional, and information consumers developed better filtering mechanisms, most of these problems would disappear.

An earlier version of this article was published at Pearls & Irritations on 8 January 2022.

Dr Scott Burchill taught International Relations at Deakin University for 30 years

A report to the Berejiklian Government revealing such gross mismanagement of a public sector agency that it was probably thought a blessing that it was formally ordered published on a Friday

Failure of the icare Board to govern, lack of expertise, conflicts of interest, unethical behaviour, financial mismanagement, failure to meet standards, inappropriate behaviour, lack of accountability and grossly excessive executive remuneration – just a few of the problematic issues revealed in the 2020 annual review of this state compulsory workers compensation scheme, managed by icare since 2015 under ‘reforms’ established by the NSW Baird Coalition Government.

Sadly, the 2019 Independent reviewer report on the Nominal Insurer of the NSW workers compensation scheme: For the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (NSW) foreshadowed what was to come in 2020, by failing in its report to discourage the icare board and management from continuing the organisation’s wayward course.

NSW Legislative Council, Standing Committee on Law and Justice, 2020 review of the Workers Compensation Scheme, April 2021, excerpt:

Findings

Finding 1

That the multi-billion losses incurred recently by the Nominal Insurer and Treasury Managed Fund have been caused, in large part, by a collapse in return to work rates arising from icare’s decision to introduce a new claims management model.

Finding 2

That return to work rates have fallen further in schemes managed by icare than in schemes managed by specialist and self-insurers.

Finding 3

That icare has failed to address the fall in return to work rates in the Nominal Insurer and the Treasury Managed Fund with either the urgency or thoroughness they deserved given the negative impacts falling return to work rates have on injured workers and the financial sustainability of the scheme.

Finding 4

That the Nominal Insurer and the Treasury Managed Fund will continue to sustain major underwriting losses until icare improves return to work rates.

Finding 5

That implementation of the Work Injury Screening and Early Intervention (WISE) protocols, that deliver early and active intervention for injured workers with musculoskeletal injury that have a risk of delayed return to work, have had a significant positive impact on return to work rates, and despite this evidence being available to icare they have not been adopted in the Nominal Insurer or the Treasury Managed Fund.

Finding 6

That icare has too often failed to reach the standards of behaviour expected of a New South Wales public sector agency.

Finding 7

That icare’s decision to select Guidewire and Capgemini to build the Nominal Insurer Single Platform appears to have been predetermined, and led to project costs rising from $110 million to more than $360 million.

Finding 8

That Mr Vivek Bhatia and Mr Michael Carapiet failed to take appropriate steps to declare, record and manage the conflict of interests arising from Mr Bhatia’s personal relationship with the leaders of Capgemini.

Finding 9

That Mr John Nagle's decision to appear in a video endorsing Guidewire’s software, and to accept their sponsorship of a trip to Las Vegas to appear at their 2018 conference, was inappropriate.

Finding 10

That icare failed to clearly notify bidders that it was considering the appointment of a sole scheme agent to manage Nominal Insurer claims in the 2018 tender and as a consequence, the tender process was not fairly conducted.

Finding 11

That icare’s implementation of a claims management system that has a single scheme agent to manage all nominal insurer claims by using a sole scheme agent has failed.

Finding 12

That icare appears to have applied undue pressure on EML to engage The Bridge International using a Project Service Order mechanism.

Finding 13

That icare’s decision to select the Perceptive Group to develop a Net Promoter Score transgressed all reasonable conflict of interest principles.

Finding 14

That icare’s decision to award Mr Rob Craig unlimited authority to enter into contracts to build the Nominal Insurer Single Platform was inappropriate and contrary to an express policy determined by the Board.

Finding 15

That icare’s systemic failure to comply with key requirements of the Government Information (Public Access Act (2009) is longstanding, systematic and remains unacceptable.

Finding 16

That icare’s policy of permitting senior executives to engage in secondary employment is inappropriate, especially given the extraordinary levels of the salaries paid to icare executives to perform their work for icare.

Finding 17

That the icare Board failed to appropriately sanction the former Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director after his inadequate disclosure of a serious conflict of interest involving a close family member.

Finding 18

That icare failed to provide Mr Chris McCann with a safe workplace and inappropriately required him to enter into a non-disclosure agreement after he raised serious concerns with icare's governance.

Finding 19

That the icare Board comprehensively failed to properly govern icare.

Finding 20

That icare's Board lacked members with expertise in personal injury management or workers compensation.

Finding 21

That mechanisms between the icare Board and Treasurer have failed to work in making icare accountable for its conduct.

Finding 22

That the level of executive remuneration at icare is grossly excessive, and is likely to have contributed to poor cultural practices at icare, and is out of keeping with community expectations.

Meet the icare Board at https://www.icare.nsw.gov.au/about-us/our-people/our-board.

The dramatic increase in COVID-19 deaths in Australia’s aged care homes begs the ethics around our treatment of people in aged care, says a UNSW expert

MediaNet Release, 24 September 2020:

Treating our elderly people ethically and with transparency

UNSW’s Richard Hugman says it is time to stop treating elderly people as objects, as the Royal Commission into Aged Care and Safety continues.

The dramatic increase in COVID-19 deaths in Australia’s aged care homes begs the ethics around our treatment of people in aged care, says a UNSW expert. In less than four months, deaths from COVID-19 in aged care have increased from 28 to 580, at the time of writing.

UNSW Emeritus Professor Richard Hugman, a social worker who specialises in the aged care professions, says Australia’s service provision needs to treat older people as human beings rather than objects.

"To use a similar ethos in caring for human beings that you would use in producing physical things for sale, I think is an unfortunate way to think about the world,” the former professor of social work at UNSW Arts & Social Sciences, says.

"The way policies are framed around running these [places], it is as if they are running a factory. I understand good management techniques are transferable across settings, but you also need to understand the content of what you're managing.”

Causes of the COVID outbreaks in aged care

A range of factors have been blamed for the outbreak of COVID-19 in care facilities, including a lack of training in the use of Personal Protective Equipment and supplies available for care staff.

Melbourne’s aged care homes have been the worst hit, with all but five of the 115 aged care homes affected by the virus in Victoria. St Basil’s recording 44 deaths, Epping Gardens 36 deceased and Twin Parks Aged Care in Reservoir with 21.

In Sydney, Newmarch House recorded the state’s highest death toll in aged care with 19 cases, including two residents who had COVID-19 when they died from other causes. And the numbers are growing.

Newmarch and St Basil’s had alarming numbers because they decided not to transfer patients to hospital, Prof. Hugman says.

"I haven't seen the detail, but the question I would be asking is, ‘were those homes actually using established infectious disease control methods?’” he says.

The decision not to transfer patients is exacerbated by the fact that today there are very few qualified nurses in nursing homes, Prof. Hugman says.

"Some nursing homes don't even actually have a nurse on duty at all times. If they’re looking after 100 people and they’ve got one nurse on duty to supervise other people, then they might have somebody who has a certificate from TAFE administering drugs and medications.

"Whereas in a hospital, someone would actually have to be a qualified nurse to be doing that.”

Care staff working across multiple sites during the pandemic have also reportedly been a likely source of COVID-19 transmission. Prof. Hugman says staff have to work between homes just to earn enough to survive on.

"It's not just in Victoria, despite what the government says. These are all reflections of the broader ethics of the social value that is placed on [ageing] people, so that they seem to be less well cared for than they could be otherwise.”

Early findings from the Royal Commission’s interim report

The Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (RCACQS) is looking at better financing models, including regulation of aged care providers, in its latest hearings expected to run until September 22.

It comes after a survey by the University of Queensland for RCACQS estimated it would cost $621 million per year to improve the quality of all aged care homes to better standards. In its October 2019interim report, the RCACQS’ scathing review stated that aged care is a “shocking tale of neglect” in Australia that fails to meet the needs of our elderly people.

Australia’s aged care sector is “unkind and uncaring” towards older people, it does not deliver uniformly safe and quality care and often neglects them, according to the interim report.

Prof. Hugman says while the Royal Commission creates an opportunity for people to speak up, the real challenge lies in the government’s response and how it then permeates into the wider society.

A lack of transparency

Prof. Hugman says there is a lack of transparency in how government funding is spent by management in aged care facilities in comparison to community-based social services where monitoring is stringent.

He says claims by some aged care homes, particularly those from the for-profit sector, that they have to spend less on staff relative to residents in order to cover their costs just doesn’t stack up.

"And those claims about non-profitability do not explain how or why the [aged care] for-profit sector remains [in operation],” he says.

For-profit aged care homes have reported more cases of COVID-19 than facilities operating on a not-for-profit framework, heightening concerns about staff numbers, training and supplies.

Raising the social value of elderly people

The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre has since been set-up to coordinate efforts to stabilise any further COVID-19 outbreaks across the private and public aged care sectors, with an infection control officer now stationed in each facility.

And the Royal Commission is set to release its final report by 26 February 2021.

Prof. Hugman recommends the government respond to the Royal Commission by not only providing sufficient funding but by also ensuring older people are treated with dignity and care.

"[The government needs to] focus on improvements to the aged care sector that are not reflective of a sense that older people needing care are a burden on society,” Prof. Hugman says.

[Instead, they need to focus on the fact] that older people are part of society and that a good society is one that values all its members.”

Prof. Hugman also says there needs to be an emphasis placed on the expression of positive values about how to treat and view elderly people as human beings.

"Frankly, there are some places I've visited in the last few years, either because I've had friends or relatives who are living in them or I've gone to visit for professional reasons,” Prof. Hugman says.

And they’re places, “I wouldn't go anywhere near”.

Morrison Government believes that warehousing older Australians until they die is the appropriate function of aged care in Australia?

An estimated 221,300 people in Australia entered aged care services between 2009–10 and 2018–19. 

Months before the COVID-19 global pandemic hit, in fact on 31 October 2019, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety published an interim report titled "Neglect" which stated in the foreword:

As a nation, Australia has drifted into an ageist mindset that undervalues older people and limits their possibilities. Sadly, this failure to properly value and engage with older people as equal partners in our future has extended to our apparent indifference towards aged care services. Left out of sight and out of mind, these important services are floundering. They are fragmented, unsupported and underfunded. With some admirable exceptions, they are poorly managed. All too often, they are unsafe and seemingly uncaring. This must change..... 

We have found that the aged care system fails to meet the needs of our older, often very vulnerable, citizens. It does not deliver uniformly safe and quality care for older people. It is unkind and uncaring towards them. In too many instances, it simply neglects them.

A little over nine months later this is the Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's opinion of the aged care system his government administers. 

 Financial Review, 14 August 2020:

"On the days that the system falls short, on the days that expectations are not met, I'm deeply sorry about that. Of course I am," the Prime Minister said.

"I know that everyone who is involved in the process who is trying to meet those expectations is equally sorry.

"I think we’ve got to have a reality check about this. I think that it’s great that Australians have high expectations.”….

Mr Morrison said the cohort of Australians seeking aged care had changed significantly since Howard government-era controversies, including revelations of residents being bathed in diluted kerosene.

"We're dealing with a system that is now dealing with a very different demand.

"It is very much at a stage of pre-palliative care. And that is a very different proposition in terms of the facilities, the workforce, the clinical needs, to what it was 10 years ago.

"The system needs to be adjusted to meet that."

This is what his Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians & Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck stated on the floor of the Senate on 31 August 2020:

"There are about 60,000 Australians who die in residential aged care on an annual basis unfortunately, but that's one of the functions of residential aged care." 

Here are some social media comments from older Australians and their families concerning the predominately for profit wharehousing being endorsed and funded by the federal government:

"As older woman something struck me after conversation with other local women in my age group. Everyone expressed horror of residential aged care. Some have told children they do not want this to happen, some expressed an intention to suicide - active or passive. Australia 2020".

"So agree".

"Exactly my sentiments, I've told my children not to ever consider putting me into residential care. I'd rather find a good drug dealer or Euthanasia Medical Specialist to take care of things."

"My 87 year old Mum agrees. Been in the family home for over 50 years, says the only way she'll leave is feet first."

"I certainly will if faced with the prospect of incarceration in one of these hellholes".

"Told my sister and her kids to take me up the back paddock and shoot me before going this way."

"Absolutely, older women I know are all going to "take care of it" for themselves, when the time is right and won't be told what to do and when by others but are afraid they may not have the capacity or the means to do it for themselves they are afraid."

"I’ve had this conversation with my mother. She begged me, in tears, and told me she’d ‘sort it out’ if it came to that."

"Nearly 70 and still in own home. Will NOT go into aged care. Am first generation that can see what “living forever” via meds etc looks like and really has little appeal for me. Voluntary end of life must be looked at but anyone choosing nursing home has absolute right to decency."

"I'm 40, and have worked in an aged care home. I have also told my kids not to put me in a home, that I would rather die with some dignity."

"My mum told me to knock her on the head with a frying pan. I told her I wouldn’t go to jail for her, she could just live with me. Aged care has been a disgrace for decades. It is a genuine fear for seniors & a heartache & fear for families with no other choice."

"Once I'm passed looking after myself is when it's time to go. Seen to much damage done by evil neglect to those who are forced to live past their "best before" date." 

"My parents, who are in their 80s, have both said that they would rather suicide than go into an Aged Care home. I have told them that they can move in with us and we will get the in-home care that they need, but they won't consider this. It makes me sad, but I understand them."

BACKGROUND

Residential aged care for the 221,300:

More than two-thirds of these were an admission into residential care—this was split between permanent (almost 70,000) and respite care (over 83,500).

Of all people entering aged care, around 1 in 5 people were admitted to home care (almost 43,800) and 1 in 10 were admitted to transition care (over 24,000).

Almost 60,800 people were admitted to permanent residential aged care for the first time in 2018–19. [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, GEN aged care data]

In 2017-18:

More than 3,000 aged care providers in Australia deliver care through nearly 9,000 services (outlets). The sector comprises private (for-profit) providers alongside community-based and charitable providers, and state and territory and local government providers. The mix of ownership type varies across programs, with the largest proportion of for-profit services in the residential care program (41% of residential aged care places are managed by for-profit providers).

Collectively, these services supported the care needs of more than 1.2 million people in 2017–18, at a total cost to governments of $18.4 billion. Consumers may also be asked to contribute to the cost of care. In residential aged care, for example, the cost to governments in 2016–17 was $12.1 billion, and residents contributed a further $4.7 billion (ACFA 2018). [AIHW , Aged Care Snapshot, 11 September 2019]

• In 1997-98, the average age of entry into residential care for females was 82.8 years; by 2008-09 this had increased to 84.3 years. For males, over the same period, the average age of entry into residential care increased from 79.5 years to 81.6 years.

• In 2000-01, the average age of people admitted to Community Aged Care Packages was 79.7 years. By 2009-10, this had increased to 81.4 years. Between 2003-04 and 2009-10 the average age of people admitted to Extended Aged Care at Home Packages increased from 80.8 years to 82.2 years.

• Given there is no clear trend in the median length of stay, the increasing age at entry will result in demand for services not increasing as rapidly as the population is ageing. [Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry Caring for Older Australians from the Department of Health and Ageing December 2010, excerpts]

In June 2018 the majority of older people in residential aged care were 75 years and over – 81% of all men and 90.5% of all women [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, GEN aged care data]

Fourteen years ago the bi-annual proportion of persons over 65 years of age dying in residential aged care in Australia was estimated at between 34% (high level care only) to 53% (including both high and low level of care plus respite care). [Broad, J.B. et al, 2015, “Likelihood of residential aged care use in later life: a simple approach to estimation with international comparison”, p.3]

The Minister:

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 2020:

Colbeck was appointed to the Senate in 2002 to fill a vacancy. In 2016 he lost his seat after being demoted to fifth place on the Coalition ticket in Tasmania, but unexpectedly returned in February 2018 after the parliamentary eligibility crisis forced Stephen Parry, a dual British citizen, to resign.

The Prime Minister:

The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October 2009: 

Towke won easily. On the first ballot, he polled 10 times as many votes as Morrison, 82 votes to 8, who was eliminated in the first round. His victory meant that a Lebanese Australian would represent the Liberal Party in the seat where the Cronulla riot and revenge raids had taken place 18 months earlier, in December 2005. ''The campaign against me started four days after preselection,'' Towke said.....

Though Towke would eventually win his legal war, the damage had been done. The adverse media coverage set in train a reaction within the party to get rid of him. A second ballot was ordered, in which the balance of power was shifted away from the grassroots in Cook and to the state executive. The second ballot gave the preselection to Scott Morrison. Amazing. He had been parachuted into the seat over Towke's political carcass. Morrison clearly had backers who wanted him to get the seat. ''These guys were prepared to ruin my life,'' Towke said.