Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I do say that the minister is not using this opportunity to share information with the Senate about the number of spot checks that have been undertaken in the three months since he came into this chamber at question time and proudly told the Senate that 142 checks had occurred in May and 139 in June. I do not go away from this debate with any confidence when the minister tells us that he is going to share with the Senate ‘as regularly as I have’—I think those were his words—the information about the number of spot checks that are going to be undertaken. I draw no comfort from that. I am sure the community draw no comfort from that. I would have thought, given the obvious pride that he showed in that data early in the year, he would continue to show some pride.

He said to me that I can draw whatever conclusions I will. I have two months data showing that there are about 140 spot checks a month. A simple bit of maths tells you that 140 by 12 gives you 1,680. That is not 3,000. Given the data I have, I take your advice, Minister, and draw the conclusion I can, and that is the conclusion I come to. I need more evidence to turn that information around and get an understanding that the agency will in fact hit 3,000 spot checks per year.

I am disappointed, too, that the minister has not ascertained which outcomes the agency will be assessing against, and it is evident that he has not even bothered to do as much. I am surprised, given that my amendment came into the Senate last Thursday. There was plenty of indication to the minister that these are the sorts of issues that we were going to talk about. I want to know, firstly, why the government is not going to assess against 44 expected outcomes. And then it is a pretty logical thing to expect that I would be asking on what basis which outcomes are being selected. But anyway, we will talk about that more at estimates. But I still reiterate that I am concerned that the minister is not using this opportunity to provide the Senate with the information that I think the community should rightfully have.