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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Under John Howard, Bronwyn Bishop lost her job when an aged-care resident died in connection with the kerosene baths scandal. Aged-care residents are now so neglected that up to half are suffering from malnutrition, one had ants crawling from open wounds and over 400 have died from COVID-19. Why does the current aged-care minister still have his job?

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

Because, under this aged-care minister, $1.5 billion of additional support has been put into the aged-care sector during the COVID-19 crisis. When additional resources are required to address the significant challenges in the aged-care sector, the minister has consistently brought forward submissions for additional support to be provided right across the board in the aged-care sector to ensure the viability of the sector, to ensure that there's additional and appropriate training being provided, there's additional workforce support—$1.5 billion, including the more than $500 million that was announced by the Minister for Health and the minister of aged care today, just today, to ensure the extension of COVID arrangements which is necessary.

This is a challenging crisis; I think we all understand that. And, as we always do when it comes to the support that we're providing—whether it's directly to Australians through things like JobKeeper or JobSeeker, or the supports that are necessary for the aged-care sector as we address the significant challenges there, particularly in Victoria, where we've had the significant outbreak of community transmission—on each occasion, we will continue to assess the needs, and the supports will be provided. The announcement of an additional more than half a billion dollars for aged-care support, which extends the current arrangements for additional support further, particularly because of the situation that we have seen in Victoria, where there have been additional challenges for the system following the significant community outbreak that has occurred.

In addition, it has also been the strong advocacy and work of the minister for aged care that has ensured that our government has kept pace in continuing to increase the number of in-home aged-care places in this country. There were the 10,000 additional places we took to the last election. Since then, we have provided not only those 10,000 places but an extra 16,000 on top of that, and that was done with the full support and advocacy of the minister for aged care.