Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Health) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian population is ageing, and senior Australians and their families deserve to have access to high-quality aged care and services when they need them. Integral to this is supporting approved providers to make residential aged-care places ready for use as quickly as possible. The comments that were offered by the shadow minister are not a true reflection of the reality that has occurred since the Productivity Commission report. The challenges that are embedded in the aged-care sector arise from the time of the Productivity Commission report, the choosing of its recommendations that Labor, at the time, thought were appropriate, and inadequate funding that has been provided over that period of time. In addition, at the time, there was a reduction to the bottom-line budget by Labor over three consecutive years. I won't go into the level of funding. It was never put back in.

Our coalition government has focused on increasing the spend on aged care—$5 billion in the last budget. There will be a continuation, in the forward years, of our commitment to improving the outcomes for senior Australians. The royal commission was not called because the system failed. The royal commission was called to address the structural flaws that exist within the aged-care sector. The commentary around the loss of funding is to do with inappropriate behaviour by providers against the budget that was set within the budgetary processes. Labor's continued claims were refuted by Fact Check on two occasions. It made it very clear that the statements were not the truth, because the budget for aged care has continually improved, and it continues to grow.

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