Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his decision to remove aged-care minister Richard Colbeck from decisions to activate new aged-care emergency measures. Isn't this a declaration of no confidence in the capacity of Minister Colbeck to do his day job? If that's the case, why is this minister still there?

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

The member's question only indicates his lack of understanding about how advice from the AHPPC is dealt with by the Minister for Health. The report today, I note—and I will ask the Minister for Health to add further to the answer—does not reflect how those processes are normally handled. They have been handled in the way they always are. I speak to the minister for aged care every single day. He is part of the hook-up that we have with the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the health minister and myself, in particular reviewing aged-care issues on a daily basis, which we have been doing for some time. The minister for aged care is regularly providing briefings to the Expenditure Review Committee of cabinet, as more than a billion dollars has been added to our COVID support in aged care, and, in addition to that, providing briefings to the National Security Committee of cabinet where those matters have been relevant to his portfolio.

Over these many months the minister for aged care has been responsible for the outcomes that I referred to earlier, which have seen Australia be in a position where 97 per cent of facilities in this country, despite the significant community outbreak in Victoria, which the Leader of the Opposition has a blind spot on—the Leader of the Opposition believes that in Victoria there's nothing going on when it comes to community transmission, that there has been no failure of quarantine, that there has been no failure of tracing. The Leader of the Opposition seems to think that everything is okay in Victoria, and that there have only been challenges in aged care. The Leader of the Opposition has a blind spot on Victoria. What we are doing is addressing the challenges that have resulted from the outbreak in community transmission in Victoria—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMahon is now warned!

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

and the minister for aged care has been acquitting his responsibilities in those areas. The Minister for Health may wish to add further.

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

I'm pleased to add to the Prime Minister's answer. The very simple response is that what was done was a matter of course. The AHPPC, which was reporting through the Chief Medical Officer to the secretary of Health, who reports to the Minister for Health, used an ordinary procedure—that is, the ordinary case event. More broadly, though, what we have seen is four key pillars established as part of this response: one, a public hospitals agreement; two, a private hospitals agreement; three, a surge workforce approach; and, four, a testing approach for every facility in Australia that needs it. All of those four pillars were critically developed in conjunction with, in many cases, the leadership of the minister for aged care. (Time expired)