Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

The seat of Shortland has over 40,000 people over the age of 60. It's a fabulous place to retire, and we have many people coming up from Sydney and other places. We are at the focal point of the aged-care crisis in this nation. I meet with aged-care residents and their families regularly. They have huge issues and huge challenges to face. I meet with the workers there, who face low pay and considerable pressures on their time. For the Prime Minister now to suddenly discover there's a problem with the aged-care sector is the equivalent of someone robbing a bank and then complaining about bank security. This is the bloke who, as Treasurer, cut $2 billion from aged-care budgets in this country—$2 billion! We have 108,000 people on the home care package waiting list, 88,000 of them with high needs such as dementia, and we have a workforce that will triple in the next couple of decades. But all we get from the government is excuses, denials that they are the problem and denials that they cut $2 billion while constituents in my electorate and every other electorate in this country suffer. Well, the public won't cop it. They see through this mob, they see through the prime muppet and they say enough is enough. People in aged-care facilities, their families and the workers want real solutions to the challenges they face, not grandstanding from a government that cut $2 billion from the sector.

See this speech in context