Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Eden-Monaro for her contribution to this debate. I would, however, humbly point out that it's not just members of regional Australia and rural Australia who are geared to care; members of my community care for lots of people in aged care as well. Members of Australia who live in metropolitan areas care greatly about other members of their communities. That's the thing about the Australian community: regardless of where you may live, regardless of what you might do, we care for each other. It is not simply the reserve of those who live in the bush.

It has been said that the great enemy of truth is not the lie, which is deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth: persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. I ask this House to consider whether this MPI does not exactly resemble what that statement warns against. The members for Wills's contribution today was to say that, while there were many deaths in privately owned aged-care facilities in Victoria, there were only six in the state government run aged-care facilities in Victoria. What he failed to mention was that the state government of Victoria does not actually own or operate that many aged-care facilities and that all of those aged-care facilities are in rural and regional areas where there was no community outbreak.

It's that level of misinformation, that level of myth-making, that level of contrivance in attempting to take the loss of 680 lives in our aged-care facilities and turn it to political advantage that I stand here today to rail against. Shame on those opposite for using the deaths, and the families of those people who suffered due to those deaths, for some political point-scoring. It is absolutely extraordinary that the member for Eden-Monaro would say that this government has ignored the crisis in aged care and that is cruel.

The previous government were given a report by the Productivity Commission, and for four long years Mark Butler, who was otherwise an excellent minister for aged care, sat on that report. Julia Gillard, the then Prime Minister, sat on that report. There was a lack of investment in aged care and there was a lack of capacity built into aged care while the Labor Party dithered, absolutely dithered, in trying to do—what? To do nothing? And it did absolutely nothing, and people suffered.

This government has acted. Every time the royal commission has made recommendations, this government has responded. The myth from those opposite is that we have not. Not only have we responded; we have taken action. We have taken action to care for those vulnerable Australians that those opposite talk about all the time but do so little to help. We have this experience—

Ms Collins interjecting—

Yes, but when you were in government, Shadow Minister, you did—

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