Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contest the opposition's statement that the government has failed to adequately prepare the aged-care sector for the COVID-19 outbreaks. There really could be nothing further from the truth. I'm not sure whether those opposite have been to visit the aged-care facilities in their own electorates. I certainly have in mine. I've worked tirelessly, in the last few weeks and months, with my aged-care facilities to ensure that they are prepared. So it is almost an insult to hear what is happening from the other side. It is a cheap shot. That is because it is a very fragile system. We know that. We know that there are difficulties in the aged-care sector, and that is why there is a royal commission.

With regard to COVID, it is a very special pandemic that is happening, a very special virus that has done something extraordinary. Unlike every other respiratory pandemic that we have ever seen, it has a predilection for the elderly. There is no other respiratory pandemic that has ever done this anywhere in the world. Every other pandemic, whether it is the Spanish flu or any other, has affected the extremes of age—both the very young and the very old. So this pandemic is unprecedented for many reasons. But one of the most unfortunate aspects of this pandemic is its predilection for the old.

We know this because we have seen it unfold overseas. We have seen the carnage overseas—the carnage of those dying in aged-care homes at a significantly higher rate than in Australia. Our mortality rate in the aged-care sector is 0.17 per cent. That is 15 times lower than Canada, 30 times lower than Italy and Ireland, and 53 times lower than the UK. So if you want evidence of what would happen if we didn't have a plan just go overseas. I have spoken to many of my colleagues on a regular basis about how distressing it has been because governments like the UK government and the US government haven't had a plan. They haven't had a plan to deal with the health crisis that has approached the country. They haven't had an adequate plan to deal with those in aged care.

We on this side are a federal government that has been on the front foot from the very start. I'm enormously proud of what we have done, what we've achieved and what we continue to achieve. As someone who has been in public health for most of my research career, I understand how hard it is to prove that prevention works. But right here in Australia you can see that a plan prevents death. I'm very proud of what the Minister for Health and the minister for aged care have achieved. It started back in January. We could all see what was happening in Italy, with deaths happening. I had colleagues calling me from Italy saying, 'Please, don't let happen in Australia what's happening in Italy!' Medical researchers and medical researchers in Australia also contacted me and told me people were dropping like flies in Italy.

That has not happened in Australia, and that's because we put a plan in place. So to say that there was no plan is an absolute insult. To start with, in January we pre-emptively acted with the first of six stages of a national plan for aged-care prevention of COVID—it even has 'plan' in the title—and committed $100 million to aged-care sector preparedness. In February we then developed the aged-care COVID response guidelines by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia. That was ratified by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, which is made up of all the chief health officers of the states and territories. These guidelines used world's best practice, including recommendations from the WHO and US CDC. And then in March we committed $440 million in funding to support aged-care workforce continuity, which included a retention bonus, because we understood that these aged-care facilities needed to be ready.

We as a government understood that this COVID pandemic, if it gets out of control and there is community transmission, ravages the community and ravages the aged-care sector. So we were prepared. But unfortunately what happened was that the Victorian government let the team down. We had widespread community transmission—and it was actually the workers who took it into the aged-care sector. I'd like to give a shout-out to the aged-care sector because they have been doing it tough. It has not been easy. We should be proud of how they have prevented thousands of deaths here in Australia. I'd like to thank them from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

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