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

I thank the member for her question. I would invite her to listen carefully to the Treasurer's response tonight in the budget, where also we will release our full response to the royal commission into aged care that I commissioned not long after I took on the role of Prime Minister. The royal commission into aged care has provided us with a wealth of information to ensure that we can deliver a response tonight that addresses the challenges that have been faced not just in recent times, as the royal commission highlighted, but going back over several decades.

Responding to the challenges of aged care has over quite a long period of time, until the last few years, been an act of bipartisanship in this place. I remember that when the shadow minister for health was the minister he worked closely with the opposition, and we sought to support him in that. As the royal commission has reported, there are many challenges in this space. We will respond to those wholeheartedly tonight, but it won't be for the first time, because, in response to the member's question, I note this: real growth in this government's aged-care funding has increased by 50 per cent from when we came to government to the current year. It has increased from $14.2 billion to $24.3 billion.

See this speech in context