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Nursing Home Fee Determinations: Judicial Supervision of Departmental Procedure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2025

Mark Dreyfus
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Extract

The extent to which the motives of providers and recipients (of care) diverge can be seen in the nursing home market – nominally under regulation, but at the worst deteriorating into a real estate market with revenue generating aged persons attached to the property like serfs to the manor.

The profit making people in the nursing homes know full well how to be quite ruthless and brutal in trying to mobilize emotional responses in the community against a government so that they can exploit the taxpayer by forcing a government into paying out more money … when it suited the private commercial nursing home people, patients were moved on litters out of their nursing homes to the edge of the footpaths of the street outside the homes. It was arranged for the media, particularly the visual media, to cover the whole exercise. All sorts of emotional displays were indulged in.

Type
Research Article
Information
Federal Law Review , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 89 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Australian National University

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Footnotes

*

This research was carried out as part of a project on The Law and Older People in Australia, at the National Research Institute of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Mount Royal Hospital, Parkville 3052. Mark Dreyfus held the position of Research Fellow at the Institute for that project, which was funded by the Myer Foundation and the Sidney Myer Trust.

References

1 C F, Muller, “Economic Roles and the Status of the Elderly” in E F, Borgatta and N G, McCluskey (eds), Aging and Society: Current Research and Policy Perspectives (1980)Google Scholar.

2 W, Hayden, H Reps Deb 1976, Vol 99, 1887Google Scholar.

3 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497.

4 Sean Investments Pty Ltd v MacKellar (1982) 38 ALR 363; Sean Investments Pty Ltd v MacKellar (1982) 42 ALR 676; Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145; Howells v Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd (1982) 43 ALR 283; Croft v MacKellar (Federal Court of Australia, 8 February 1983, unreported decision of Smithers J).

5 Office of the Auditor General, Report of the Auditor General on an Efficiency Audit Report: Commonwealth Administration of Nursing Home Programs (1981). (Cited hereafter as “Audit”).

6 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure, Review of the Auditor General's Efficiency Audit Report: Commonwealth Administration of Nursing Home Programs (1982). (Cited hereafter as “Audit Review”). See also: L, McLeay, “In a Home or at Home: Accommodation and Home Care for the Aged” in Report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure (1982) (Cited hereafter as “McLeay Report”)Google Scholar.

7 D, Wilson, “Nursing Home Benefits: The First Ten Years and the New Arrangements” (1973-74) I Social Security Quarterly (Summer) 21Google Scholar. See also TH, Kewley, Social Security in Australia 1900-72 (1973) 536Google Scholar.

8 TH Kewley, ibid.

9 F, Ehrlich, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1977Google Scholar. Quoted in TH Kewley, supra n 7, 537. Ehrlich was not offering praise.

10 D Wilson, supra n 7, 22.

11 For further comment on the growth control and admission control measures, see T H, Kewley, Australian Social Security Today (1980) 154ffGoogle Scholar.

12 McLeay Report, supra n 6, 68.

13 Audit Review, supra n 6, 5.

14 Audit, supra n 5, 76.

15 McLeay Report, supra n 6, 68.

16 Ministerial Statement, Sen Deb 1972, Vof 53, 58.

17 McLeay Report, supra n 6, 69.

18 Audit, supra n 5, 79.

19 Ibid 77.

20 Department ofHealth, Annual Report 1977-78 (1978) 105; Department of Health, Annual Report 1978-79 (1979) 115.

21 D Wilson, supra n 7, 23.

22 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497, 505.

23 Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145, 157-159.

24 Howells v Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd (1982) 43 ALR 283, 306.

25 Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145, 157.

26 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497.

27 See supra n 4.

28 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497, 503.

29 Ibid.

30 Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145, 168.

31 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497, 508.

32 Ibid 504.

33 Ibid.

34 (1982) 43 ALR 283.

35 Ibid 294.

36 (1919) l KB 176.

37 [1971] AC 610.

38 D C, Pearce, “Courts, Tribunals and Government Policy” (1980) 11 FL Rev 203, 206Google Scholar.

39 British Oxygen Co Ltd v Minister of Technology [1971] AC 610, 625.

40 D C Pearce, supra n 38, 208.

41 Howells v Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd (1982) 43 ALR 283, 307.

42 Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145, 170-171.

43 Croft v MacKellar (Federal Court of Australia, 8 February 1983, unreported decision of Smithers J).

44 (1982) 43 ALR 283.

45 See H, Whitmore and M, Aronsen, Review of Administrative Action (1978) 209-212Google Scholar.

46 R v Hunt; ex part Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497, 504.

47 Sean Investments Pty Ltd v MacKellar (1982) 38 ALR 363, 375.

48 (1976] 2 All ER 781.

49 Ibid 788.

50 (1982) 43 ALR 243, 305.

51 Sean Investments Pty Ltd v MacKellar (1982) 42 ALR 676, 681.

52 R v Hunt; ex parte Sean Investments Pty Ltd (1979) 25 ALR 497, 508.

53 Ibid 509.

54 Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd v Howells (1981) 38 ALR 145, 162. It should be noted that the Commonwealth in fact totally subsidises patients in 70 per cent of homes.

55 Ibid 163.

56 Ibid 167.

51 Ibid 170.

58 Howells v Nagrad Nominees Pty Ltd (1982) 43 ALR 283, 290-291.

59 Ibid 291.

60 Croft v MacKellar (Federal Court of Australia, 8 February 1983, unreported decision of Smithers J, 32).

61 Sean Investments Pty Ltd v MacKellar (1982) 38 ALR 363, 368.

62 Ibid 370-371 (Italics added).

63 (1984) 56 ALR 265.

64 N, Blewett H Reps Deb 1983, Vol 2, 403-405Google Scholar.

65 Alexandra Private Geriatric Hospital v Blewett and Another (1984) 56 ALR 265, 278.

66 lbid 25.

67 Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. S166 Wednesday 9 May 1984.

68 The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia PRIVATE NURSING HOMES IN AUSTRALIA: their conduct administration and ownership Report by the Select Comittee on Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes. AGPS Canberra 1984, p127.