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

The Kalyna Care centre that the member refers to was one of those four centres that I referred to in my remarks yesterday where those outcomes were simply not acceptable. They are four centres out of over 2,700 aged care centres in Australia, and four of those centres have had these absolutely outrageous and unacceptable outcomes. And I have offered my apologies on those already. But I would simply note this: whether in that facility or the other three, where there have been the most significant of these outcomes—in 97 per cent of cases, in all other aged-care facilities in Australia, we have seen no COVID in any of those centres. And I would add that, in Australia, eight per cent of our facilities have had COVID infections involving both residents and staff. In the United Kingdom that figure is 56 per cent—seven times worse.

What has happened at Kalyna, St Basil's, Epping Gardens and others is totally unacceptable. But in a global pandemic, and where community transmission reached what it did in Victoria, the fact that in Australia it has been contained despite these terrible tragedies and that it has occurred in other countries like Australia—in the United Kingdom it has occurred at seven times the level we have seen here in Australia—demonstrates that the plan we have put in place has had an impact and it has had a positive impact. The events the member refers to are shocking, they are disturbing, they are upsetting—they were to me at the time when it was relayed to me, as we were working night and day at that time to restore stability into that facility and the three others that were most critically affected. But I'm pleased to at least say that those four cases did not become 100. Those four cases did not become 1,000—because that is what was seen in the United Kingdom. So we will continue to implement the plan. And while there can never be any absolute guarantees, particularly in a once-in-100 years pandemic, we will do everything we can to ensure that what occurred at Kalyna doesn't happen in other facilities.

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