ABC RADIO HOST, ADAM STEER: Anika Wells is the Federal Minister for Sport and Aged Care. Minister, welcome back to the studio. Welcome back to the Top End.
MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SPORT, ANIKA WELLS: Good morning, Adam. Great to be back.
STEER: The federal government has provided funds for an aged care facility at the Palmerston Hospital but has been unable basically to find someone to run it or the territory governments, I should say, have been unable to find someone to run it. Is it time the feds stepped in and you ran the facility yourself?
WELLS: Well, I've been working with two NT governments successively now on this one, and I can tell your listeners that we're making actually very good progress, and we've been speaking with the support of NT Health of late to experienced select aged care providers about their ability to step in and build the beds that we need to be built. So hopefully we'll have more to say for you on that soon.
STEER: I mean, we know that the Darwin and Palmerston hospitals have bed block issues, particularly and acutely caused by a lot of patients in those beds who should be in aged care facilities. I mean, this is really affecting the running of the hospital and the level of care that people are getting. Do you think that's acceptable?
WELLS: It's a nationwide issue. It's a case across the board because like you say, we have a rapidly ageing population and the current aged care system is simply not set up for the overwhelming numbers coming in and needing care, and that's a problem that we inherited. It's a problem we've taken some very drastic structural long-term action for this term. I'm confident the bipartisan changes as we've put through the Parliament will set the system up. But like you say, we're currently working through that transition period where we've got people every single day needing a bed, and we're trying to work with NT Health and good select providers who are capable of providing those beds.
STEER: I wonder, though, it's not as though the population suddenly aged. We've known this has been happening for two decades. Have previous governments, federal governments, dropped the ball on this?
WELLS: Well, I was trying to be statesmanlike and not start by sticking the knife into the previous government. But yes, well.
STEER: The previous government commission.
WELLS: There was a whole Royal Commission in the term of the last federal coalition government. There was nine years where, like you say, these numbers were ticking up, something needed to be done, and band-aids were chosen rather than structural reform. Now the structural reform is now there. We're implementing it. A 1st July start time for the new act. Things bode well. But like you say, we've got to act now for people who are in the system now, and that's why this federal government has put $130 million into aged care in NT alone this term.
STEER: We saw the Four Corners investigation in the childcare industry showing serious failures in the system, people cutting corners, not spending enough on their children. You get that at both ends right where you've got a childcare is run for profit and aged care run for profit. Are you happy with that as a situation?
WELLS: This is exactly what was fleshed out in the Royal Commission which the previous government had 15 months with, and we stepped in and we've got 148 recommendations. But like you say, it flushed out neglect in the system. And we've put in place all of these transparency measures. Sometimes working with providers on this, sometimes people have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to additional transparency and accountability measures. But you can't be putting taxpayer money towards providers if they're not doing the right thing by their residents. And now we've got things like Star Ratings, where you can log on and check any single nursing home in the country to see what they are on staffing, what they spend on food each month, dollars into care. Every dollar that federal taxpayers give to providers, you can now see in each nursing home where that money is going, how much on profit, how much on staffing, how much on laundry or food. And those are good things because like you say, it's not good enough.
STEER: Yeah. “Can you please ask the feds when they're going to realise the NT is different from the rest of Australia?” Says the message. “We don't have the population of seniors that are cashed up to pay for aged care either. They need to subsidise the Northern Territory providers more, or the Federal and Northern Territory governments should run it.”
WELLS: We've put in place a very strong safety net, because we're only asking people who can afford to contribute more to the cost of their care to do so. If you can't do that, we're not asking that. And we've also guaranteed for everybody, no matter your health or wealth, that your clinical care will be covered by the federal taxpayer. So about $1 for every person, every dollar that someone's asked to contribute, the federal taxpayers are still contributing $12.
STEER: Steve has brought this into it. He says, “I wonder the hospices have to suffer, people have to suffer in the hospitals and hospice unnecessarily because we have no voluntary assisted dying legislation in the Northern Territory, and relatives are too reluctant to honour the patient wishes to pass on a more dignified manner”. Thank you, Steve, for that comment there. Let's go to sport, Minister. Tasmania got a lot of funding for a new stadium in the AFL team. The territory is chasing the 20th AFL licence, are we going to get similar funding for a stadium and a team here?
WELLS: I saw the passion yesterday. I counted no less than three Lions jerseys in Maningrida, which made me very happy as a Lions supporter myself. I and all anyone could talk about yesterday in between our policy work was the grand final that's happening in Maningrida on Saturday, the biggest event of the year, I see and recognise that passion. But it's a hypothetical until this licence comes through and I know that you, the NT, are working with the AFL on the question of that licence and when that licence could come through. And once we have that licence, absolutely, we'll be there to consider it.
STEER: There's a massive uptake in club sports in Darwin and particularly in female sports. Women are taking up footy and soccer in unprecedented numbers. For the NTFL, 40% of the players registered players are women. But everyone has to finish by 7:00 because there's not enough floodlights in the suburban ovals and soccer fields. Are there any plans to help put lights up or to capitalise on this women's sporting boom?
WELLS: A $200 million fund called Play Our Way, which we have rolled out in the past 18 months off the back of the boom in women and girls sport that was happening but was really turbocharged by the Matildas and the Women's World Cup. We've now allocated $200 million towards things like change rooms for women at clubs where they don't have female change rooms. The mayor of Maningrida took me yesterday to their AFL ground, they're building a change room, they want to build a set. They want federal funding to build a second one for women and girls, because they've got exactly the kind of stats that you're talking about, a booming sport. We've recognised that we've put $200 million towards it federally. That is double the largest increase that's ever happened in women's sport. But there's a long way to go and it's exciting.
STEER: You were just in Maningrida. What were you doing there exactly?
WELLS: We have invested nearly $13 million in Mala’la Health to, I hope your listeners will be pleased, build more aged care beds, because there is a need there, and we were checking in. They've got a really interesting and unique way of delivering primary and acute health care in Mala’la, which, like you say, the NT is different. The NT should be considered and treated differently. And what they were saying is what works for them there might be able to work elsewhere. I really just wanted to see it, hear it for myself. You probably don't know this, Adam, but I actually grew up for a while in Alice Springs. This is my second trip back to the NT in a month. I went back to Alice Springs because we're building $6.5 million worth of beds for aged care workers out there at Old Timers. It's actually been really great to come back.
STEER: Okay, so and the news for the top end is that you think you're further down the track in finding a provider for an aged care facility in the new, to be built, Palmerston area.
WELLS: That is definitely the news. We have the support of NT Health to do that, and we're working with providers, and we hope to have some progress that your listeners can believe in very soon.
STEER: “Aged care providers can pick and choose who they take. This means they'll always pick the person who has the lowest care but has the most money, my mother in law says”. Another text “thankfully got an aged care bed, but due to a massive overvaluation of her home, she is currently $30,000 in fees and still has to pay a mortgage. That is difficult that situation, isn't it?
WELLS: Yeah, I'm reluctant to speak to anyone's individual financial circumstances apart from saying I hope they've sought financial advice for that. But I mean, in these cases, I hear these stories every day. It's why we're moving to a new system of aged care that is actually more fair, both for individual residents and the families who love them and the taxpayer, because at the moment the system is so, um, it's been kind of tacked on as short term fixes for decades now, and come 1st July, there'll be a whole new act that hopefully, obviously cold comfort for people in the system now, but coming in now.
STEER: Charlie in Katherine, says “the review, 12 months on, no income. and we are going broke. The system is broken,” Charlie. Yeah. The review into this particular person's issue there Charlie, will have a chat with you later on, I think – 1300057222. Very briefly before I let you go; you're making a Paralympic announcement today. Can you tell me about that?
WELLS: Well, it's for para-athletes. We try and look for cost of living relief wherever we can federally. This is one which will give grants to para-athletes to assist them with the cost of competing. And we want. There's been, I think, 160% uptick in people with disabilities seeking to participate in sport following the Paris Games. That's brilliant. We want to support that. We're off to announce, um, grants for athletes who do go along that journey today.
STEER: ACCC found our big supermarket chains are the most profitable in the world. This has just been released. Obviously, you're up here, got an initial reaction to it.
WELLS: I was out and about, so I haven't got the report to read yet. But I would say speaking as a consumer, I am on the side of consumers. This comes up all the time. I understand people's frustration. I think that's why you would have seen the 30 million from the feds already going towards giving the ACCC more powers to go after these people, because we want these costs to come down. And I would say to people, um, my local knowledge is of very little assistance here in Darwin when I talk about this on the north side of Brisbane, you know, we've got a new Fresh and Save that's opened up. We've got a new fruit and veg that's opened up, so shop around.
STEER: The situation’s very difficult in Darwin. We don't even have Aldi, so it means our basic supermarket goods are 30% more expensive than those jurisdictions that do.
WELLS: I was just listening to a podcast this morning saying, you guys have had the hardest time on eggs and the egg shortage up here as well.
STEER: [laughs] Oh yeah, don't even get me. started. No. It's fine.
WELLS: No, I'm trying to get an understanding of what you're going through up here. I was listening intently. It's tricky. I appreciate people's frustration, I really do.
STEER: Minister, appreciate your time this morning. Best of luck for the rest of your visit to the Top End. There is a minister, Anika Wells, Federal Minister for Sport and Aged Care.