Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Most significantly, what we've seen, as the Medical Journal of Australia has shown, is that even though no country is immune, and Australia has had real and significant suffering following the tragedy of community outbreak in Victoria, which translated, sadly, to the loss of life in Victoria, we see that in Italy, the loss of life of elderly residents is 600 per cent of that in Australia per one million population, with regard to care residents. In France, it's 800 per cent. In the USA, it's 900 per cent. In the UK, it's 1,500 per cent of what it is in Australia. In Belgium, it's 1,600 per cent. All of these things are fundamental and show what has happened in Australia by comparison. As the Medical Journal of Australia said, our actions have saved 16,000 lives, on their estimate, by comparison with the United Kingdom.

How has that come about? What are the things that have occurred? I think it is important to acknowledge what the commissioner said today, 'I have, however, detected over the last year—calling up counsel—a growing determination among officials and in the government to fix the problems of the aged-care system and to pursue a genuine reform agenda.' That's because this was our commission and this is our passion, and that's why this year we've invested over $1.6 billion in our COVID aged-care response plan. That began with the first step in January, where we acted immediately in relation to COVID, and moving through the second stage with the plan that was put in place for the national COVID response in February, the national aged-care COVID CDNA plan in March, the update to that which followed subsequently in relation to workforce and PPE support across March and April, the revised national plan and guidelines, again, through March, April and May, and then in June there were the revised national plan and guidelines—again, taking on board the lessons learned. These are the things that have allowed Australia to save lives and protect lives. We want to acknowledge the hardship. We want to acknowledge, as we said from the outset, that if there's community transmission on an epidemic scale, no-one is immune. But what our aged-care workers, our carers, our health officials and the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre have done is to save lives, to protect lives and to make a difference—as acknowledged by the Medical Journal of Australia.

When we look around the world at those catastrophic outcomes in other countries, we know that each life lost in Australia has been an agonising loss for the individuals and for the families, but that the work of Australia—the government, the states, the individuals involved, and, above all else, our carers—has saved lives and protected lives on a grand scale. For that, I thank all involved.

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