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WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE WULGURUKABA GURUMBILBARRA AND THE BINDAL PEOPLES WHO ARE THE TRADITIONAL CUSTODIANS OF THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE, WHERE OUR PAPER IS PRODUCED.

ELDERLY Australians are starving, dying in pain and suffering assaults in neglectful nursing homes, a royal commission has revealed in a harrowing report that flags a new levy on taxpayers to boost aged care funding.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged an extra $452m for aged care this year after reading the report’s evidence of “sad and confronting” abuse and neglect affecting one in three nursing home residents.

He said he was “quite attracted” to the royal commission recommendation for paid carer’s leave, so workers could take time off to care for elderly or ailing parents.

Mr Morrison announced an extra 1500 annual snap inspections of aged homes to crack down on abuse and neglect, and promised more money in the May budget.

He said the government would consider all 148 recommendations, which included a new Medicare-style levy on taxpayers to boost aged-care funding beyond the current $20bn a year.

“The central vision is of a nation where we value our elders, where we respect them, we provide care and we provide dignity, and we respond to their individual needs,” he said.

In a distressing 2733-page report in eight volumes, commissioners Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs concluded that “substandard care and abuse pervades the Australian aged-care system”. They warned that at least one in three aged-care residents had suffered “substandard care”, which had become “normalised” in some nursing homes.

As many as one in five residents had been assaulted in a nursing home.

“This is a disgrace and should be a source of national shame,” the report stated. “We heard of physical and sexual abuse that occurred at the hands of staff members, and of situations in which residential aged-care providers did not protect residents from abuse by other residents.”