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

The Howard government is very proud of its record when it comes to fire safety standards within aged-care facilities. Senator McLucas and the Labor Party have done much to scaremonger in relation to this matter, and I think it is important to remind the Senate of the Labor Party’s track record when it comes to fire safety. It may be very interesting to senators on both sides to know that Labor could not ensure an adequate supply of capital to aged care, at a severe cost to the quality of Australia’s aged-care homes. In fact, Labor’s—and I want to stress ‘Labor’s own’—1994 Gregory report found, and this is very instructional, that 30 per cent of nursing homes did not meet the relevant fire authority standards, 11 per cent of nursing homes did not meet the relevant health authority standards and 70 per cent of all nursing homes did not meet the relevant outcome standards. That is what we had to confront in 1996, when the coalition government came to government and had to go about rebuilding the reputation of an aged-care industry in Australia which had been utterly and totally neglected over a decade by the Labor Party.

What I can now do is inform Senator McLucas and senators opposite yet again of the track record of the Howard government: 2,677 services have provided evidence of meeting—