Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I continue to appreciate Senator Adams’s strong and sincere interest in aged-care matters and also her very diligent scrutiny of opposition statements. Yes, Senator Adams and others may be aware of the report in the Canberra Times today regarding aged-care beds in the ACT. This report seems to have sprung from a media release issued by the very imaginative shadow spokesperson for the opposition, Senator McLucas. I say ‘very imaginative’ because every time that we hear from Senator McLucas she is imagining a new crisis in aged care.

Today Senator McLucas has used some very imaginative mathematics as the basis for some nonsensical claims that aged-care beds provision has fallen. What Senator McLucas has actually done—and this is very interesting—is to compare aged-care places from 2005 with a target figure set by this government to be operational as at the start of 2008. That is important for senators opposite to understand—2005 results compared with a 2008 target. On the basis of this very imaginative comparison, Senator McLucas makes incredibly imaginative claims. Senator McLucas, as she always does, has deleted community care places from her imaginative figures. That is almost 40,000 places.