Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On a day when we see the government hell-bent on killing itself in full view of the public, I want to talk about an issue that impacts millions of Australians—an issue of real concern to Australians outside of the horrific, diabolical state of the government today. No amount of chaos from this government can hide the shocking state in which aged care now finds itself in Australia.

The minister has finally released the long-belated data from the first quarter of this year, the January to March quarter, with regard to the in-home-care packages. Of course, its release was three months overdue. I don't know if the government even made any secret of hiding the fact that it would be waiting until after the by-elections to release this data, knowing full well that the situation in aged care was getting worse. Those by-elections passed and, as we all now know, all of those Labor members were returned to parliament. Indeed, the state of aged care has declined again. There are now 108,000 older Australians waiting for an in-home-care package in order to remain living in their homes with their families and connected to their communities and those local networks that are so important to maintaining good health and wellbeing for older Australians.

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