11th Feb 2020, 3:58 PM – Senate Motions - Aged Care - Commend unions

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by NSW Senator Tony Sheldon (Labor), which means it passed. Motions like these don't make legal changes on their own, but are politically influential because they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) Aged Care Assessment Teams ('ACATs') are teams of medical professionals which run clinical and psychological checks on older Australians who have applied for home or residential aged care,

(ii) based in hospitals across the country, ACATs are ultimately responsible for assessing which older Australians should receive government- funded care,

(iii) an ACAT team usually includes a nurse, plus another healthcare worker such as a physiotherapist, occupational therapist or social worker,

(iv) the Morrison Government has announced that it will privatise the ACAT workforce from April 2021, when a tender will be put out for organisations to deliver this vital assessment,

(v) on 14 January 2020, the chair of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Honourable Gaetano Pagone QC, issued a statement saying the commission's interim report "did not endorse the government's stated position" on privatising the ACATs;

(b) supports the retention of ACATs as a publicly provided service; and

(c) commends the Health Services Union and other unions for their continued advocacy on behalf of working people in healthcare across Australia, in particular in the aged care sector.