Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start, on behalf of our side of politics, by acknowledging the very sad deaths and the infections that we've seen and the significant number of deaths in aged-care facilities right around the country, particularly in Victoria. Our thoughts are with every single person who has lost a loved one during the coronavirus pandemic. We are genuinely deeply sorry for the heartbreak that they have endured, particularly those families who have lost loved ones in aged-care facilities, some of them not getting news in a very timely way. And, as we've heard, there are some very tragic stories of people who have been unable to be with their loved one as they have passed away. I want to pay tribute to those aged-care workers who, because of the restrictions that this pandemic and this virus have inflicted, took the place of family members and held the hands of those elderly residents as they passed away. We know it's been a very difficult few weeks and months for those families, particularly those families who've been in some of the bigger facilities and outbreaks in Victoria. We have heard from so many family members about the desperation of hearing that their loved one has a COVID-19 infection and not being able to get straight answers about what is happening, and how it feels to not know, for days sometimes, what has happened to your loved one in a residential aged-care facility that has had a positive COVID outcome. It must be terrifying.

Personally, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I were the minister for aged care. I would be desperate to do everything I possibly could to ensure that every single family and every single resident was getting the best possible care and advice that they need to help improve what is an incredibly difficult situation for so many people. Let's be very clear here: it is the federal government, and, ultimately, the Prime Minister, who are responsible for aged care in Australia today. They fund aged care, they regulate aged care and they are responsible for what happens inside aged-care facilities in Australia today. That is their responsibility.

We've heard evidence to the royal commission. I think it's really important that I quote it word for word. This is from Senior Counsel Assisting Peter Rozen QC, about how prepared we were for what has happened in aged-care facilities in Australia:

… the evidence will reveal that neither the Commonwealth Department of Health nor the aged care regulator developed a COVID-19 plan specifically for the aged care sector.

We've heard a whole heap of excuses from the government and a whole heap of examples of guidelines and letters they've sent to providers, and they claim that this is a plan. When the minister for aged care was asked before the COVID select committee to table his surge workforce strategy document, he couldn't produce one. In fact, he said there wasn't one. I think it highlights just how scrambling and behind the eight ball this government has been when it has come to this outbreak. We've heard the Prime Minister say:

… on those days that we fall short, we're sorry …

And he should be. He also said:

On the days that the system falls short, on the days that expectations are not met, I'm deeply sorry about that …

But what are they are responsible for? What are they sorry for? What was it that they did wrong? What was it that they didn't do or they should have done sooner? We've had no acceptance of their responsibility, properly, for this. There have been no admissions about what they could have done or should have done sooner in response to the aged-care outbreak, particularly in Victoria and also in New South Wales. It is one thing to come in here and say, 'Look, we're sorry for the days we fall short,' but to be truly sorry they should be saying, 'This is what we have done wrong and what we are going to do better; this is what we have learnt.' Instead, we get a whole heap of excuses that it's just because of the level of community transmission. Yes, there is community transmission. That's what happens in a pandemic. But we haven't protected the people we already knew were vulnerable soon enough. We haven't done enough soon enough, and that has become very clear from evidence to the royal commission and from the minister and the department before the COVID select committee.

It has been heart-wrenching to hear the stories, to hear how desperate people are. I want to quote, in particular, Merle Mitchell. Merle Mitchell AM is an aged-care resident in Victoria. She gave evidence to the royal commission's COVID-19 hearing. She said:

I know I'm here till I die. And every morning when I wake up I think damn, I've woken up.

That is the sad indictment of aged care in Australia today. Wouldn't it be good to have a leader of our country that came in and said: 'I accept responsibility for what we did wrong. This is what we did wrong, and this is how we're going to fix it'?

That is what a true leader should do in a situation where we have thousands of aged-care residents and workers infected with COVID-19 and we've seen more than 300 older people who were in aged care die.

Ms Virginia Clarke gave evidence at the royal commission also. Her father was a resident at Newmarch House in New South Wales. Sadly, he also passed away from COVID-19. Ms Clarke was asked at the royal commission what her message is, and she said:

… I just think the communication needs to be better and, you know, our elderly need to be protected. It's not fair what happened to my dad and other residents at Newmarch House.

She's right: it's not fair. Some of it could have been prevented if the government had done its job, but, sadly, it did not.

Of course, we learnt from the reports at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House that the government was warned that this could happen and that we could be in a situation, in other aged-care facilities elsewhere in the country outside New South Wales, where we would have a whole range of staff immediately stood down and furloughed because they either have an infection or are a close contact. In fact, at Newmarch House, 87 per cent of the staff were lost. At Dorothy Henderson Lodge, 70-odd per cent of staff were lost really quickly in the first days. Of course, we know that this has happened again, sadly. We had some admission from the Prime Minister today that there were some facilities in Victoria where the unacceptable happened, but there was no acceptance of his responsibility for this having happened or that they could and should have done better.

People are dying. You need to do more, quickly. Those on that side of the House need to accept responsibility for what they have done wrong, and they need to do it better and faster. There were three months between the government getting the Dorothy Henderson Lodge report in the middle of April and the first transmissions and community outbreaks in Victoria. In that three months, it appears nothing was learnt, sadly, by the government. We didn't have systems set up with state and territory governments about how to deal with outbreaks in aged-care facilities. You didn't have an aged-care plan in every state and territory. You only announced last Friday that you're going to establish protocols for aged-care response centres to be set up in other states and territories.

We know from the regulator and the evidence at the COVID select committee that facilities were not audited for how much PPE they had, and we've had stories for weeks on end of workers in aged-care facilities not getting access to PPE appropriately to do their jobs. We've all heard the stories of nurses who are deciding which hand to put their glove on because they don't have enough gloves to do their jobs. It is appalling that we have had the Prime Minister come in here in the last few days and say, 'I'm sorry for the days we fall short,' but there's no acceptance of responsibility from him or his government about exactly what they did wrong and what they could and should have done better. Let's all remember: these are people we are talking about. They're not statistics or numbers, and people are dying.

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