Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The aged-care royal commission heard that it is well known that many aged-care workers are employed on a casual basis and work across multiple facilities, often in three or four jobs. Given that aged-care workers moving between different facilities is a key driver of infection, why did the Prime Minister wait until 19 July when the virus was already widespread to announce the initiative that Victorian aged-care workers could work at a single facility?

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

In responding to the Victorian outbreak, an issue which we know has seen over 17,000 cases in that state—and those have had an impact in relation to all elements of society, whether it's hospitals, whether it's aged care—we've been particularly focused on aged care. This has been a daily focus. What we have done is follow the medical advice in relation to actions taken. That's been the abiding principle of what we've done as a government. We've followed the medical advice and worked with the AHPPC, the medical expert panel, under the leadership of Professor Brendan Murphy and now under the leadership of Professor Paul Kelly. Those things together are the reasons why, as a country, we're in a position now where there are no aged-care facility outbreaks around the rest of the country, in seven out of eight states and territories. But there are in Victoria. They have followed community transmission. There was reference earlier to a paper which the Victorian government provided on infection control. What that showed is that, overwhelmingly, it was cases of community transmission which led to the passage, through staff who were asymptomatic, into aged-care facilities. As a part of that, we took the decisions that we made based on the medical advice provided by the medical experts.