Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was asked about aged-care funding and I was responding to the issues of how we're funding aged care. If you didn't know, people in aged care actually suffer from dementia. So the funding for the program is relevant to people who have dementia.

The budget measure that I referred to in the 2012-13 budget said:

The Government—

that is, the Labor government—

will refine the Aged Care Funding Instrument to better align the funding claimed by aged care providers with the level of care being offered.

It says that the measure is part of the government's aged-care reform package. It further says:

… the funding instrument for residential aged care services will be modified through the tightening of assessment criteria.

That produced savings of $1.6 billion. I haven't come into this place and thrown accusations at the Labor Party on this day about this issue. I have referred to exactly the same practice that the Labor Party pursued when they were in government to channel savings and funding into other important services. However, in that case it was just to heap up the debt and heap up the deficit. Labor accuses the government of something they themselves specifically engaged in when they were in government. That's the sort of hypocrisy on aged care that the Australian people are sick of.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

See this speech in context