Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very happy to speak in support of the motion put forward by my good friend the member for Franklin. Mahatma Gandhi once said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. Older Australians who require care, either in their own homes or in residential aged care, are some of society's most vulnerable. Often our mothers, they are also our fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles, and they don't have a voice on so many occasions. So I'm honoured to speak on this motion in the Chamber today in support of some of our most vulnerable Australians. This Turnbull government is shamefully treating too many older Australians with something verging on contempt.

Back in May, we saw the Turnbull government wax lyrical about how they were looking after older Australians by promising 14,000 new in-home care packages over the next four years. What they didn't say was that the funding for those 14,000 in-home care packages is coming from existing funding for residential aged care. This out-of-touch Prime Minister has reduced beds in residential aged care to pay for in-home care packages. We have an ageing population and an aged-care crisis created by the Turnbull government, a government that has shown itself to be both underhanded and irresponsible, and we have those opposite laughing at this.

By 2025, the projected gap between available residential aged-care places and consumers who will actually need those places will be 94,200 places—that is, 94,200 older Australians will need residential aged care and won't be able to get it. This is a festering national disgrace, and the blame will fall squarely at the feet of this out-of-touch government. Prime Minister Turnbull and his cronies have created this aged-care crisis. They have ignored—

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