Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Santoro, the Minister for Ageing. Can the minister confirm that the government has received repeated warnings that the aged care complaints system is not working? Hasn’t the complaints commissioner identified problems with the department’s administration of complaints and the potential for retribution to dissuade residents and families from coming forward? Didn’t the Senate report tabled on 23 June 2005 recommend a series of changes to the complaints scheme to improve its effectiveness and responsiveness? Don’t the recommendations of the Senate report directly address the problems with the system as identified by the families of the alleged abuse victims in a number of current cases? Given that there was not an election last year, as the minister has tried to claim, why didn’t the government urgently respond to these reports? Why did the government wait until cases of serious abuse became public before acting?