Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his record on aged care includes: up to two-thirds of aged-care residents malnourished; maggots in wounds; 685 COVID deaths; 27,000 older Australians who've tragically died waiting for a home-care package; and $1.7 billion in cuts? Why would Australians trust the Prime Minister to fix an aged-care system that his decisions and his government have brought to its knees?

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

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

I'm asked in an interjection: 'Does that take into account population?' Let me tell you that the increase in the population of those aged over 65 over that period of time is 23 per cent. The real growth in funding for aged care from this government has been 50 per cent and, in addition to that, home care packages have increased by 194.86 per cent. So, in response to growing demand, this government has been taking steps, year after year after year, to increase support to ensure that we increase in-home aged-care places and that we increase support to the residential aged-care sector. Tonight we will take another bold step in addressing the very serious concerns in aged care.

The question for the Labor Party is: will they play politics with this or will they engage with the government to ensure we work together to fix what is an intractable problem that has impacted on governments of Labor and of the Liberals and Nationals for decades? We will step up tonight. The test is on the Labor opposition as to whether they will join us and step up also.