Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for his question. I know that he is as concerned as I am for the welfare of the frail and vulnerable aged in our community. The reaction of the Labor Party to this question suggests to me that they are not taking this issue nearly as seriously as they should. It came to my attention last week that activities that are stipulated in the standards required by the government as appropriate for people in high-care residential care—namely, the things that most people would regard as normal and appropriate for these frail and vulnerable aged Australians—were being obviously flouted by the union and ALP representatives in the electorate of Kingston. It was revealed last week the activities to which these aged-care residents were being subjected. Residents from two aged-care facilities, the Vails and Aldis homes, were bussed to a vaudeville and propaganda afternoon which was touted as ‘Irish Albert, with guest artistes’. I am not sure that the residents of the Vails or Aldis nursing homes were told that the guest artistes were Janet Giles of SA Unions, Amanda Rishworth, the ALP candidate for Kingston, and Gay Thompson, the local state ALP member.

This would be funny if it was not quite so serious, because the people we are talking about were taken from high-care residential aged-care residences. These are the most frail and the most vulnerable people in aged care in Australia and yet they were removed from their homes to a union-ALP rally and subjected to vaudeville and propaganda. After Irish Albert, enter Janet Giles, Amanda Rishworth and Gay Thompson stage left, shouting slogans at frail aged people.

This is straight out of the ACTU-ALP manual that was revealed by the minister earlier this year which says that every step should be taken in local areas, and any depth plumbed, by Labor to get these messages across.

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