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

it is big money, as Senator Abetz says—will be in the 2007-08 budget. So it is not an election promise; it is actually a line item of $1.5 billion in the 2007-08 budget. There is nobody anywhere in this land or, indeed, anywhere else in the world where they understand English who would not recognise that that is a most significant contribution to securing the long-term welfare of ageing Australians. That needs to be stated time after time. The other thing that I should add is that the reason this government over 10 years has been able to increase the aged-care budget in this country from about $2 billion to—by the time that this package comes into full fruition, by 2011—over $10 billion in real terms, indexed, is the economic stewardship of this country by the Howard government.

Senator McLucas may want to jump on some bandwagon and talk about some implementation issues. Whenever there is a $1.5 billion package—in fact, when there is anything from a $200-million to a $500-million package—there will always be implementation issues. I stated that to the industry. I said, ‘Look, I can’t tell you what’s contained in this cabinet submission, because cabinet operates with confidentiality, but there will be issues and we will sort them out.’ What Senator McLucas did not do is quote from the rest of that media release. This is the problem that we have with the opposition: they are all into smoke and mirrors; they are all about selective quoting. What that particular release also says is: ‘We have raised our concerns with the government.’ And we recognise that they have concerns. Even $1.5 billion still leads to some people having concerns. What they said is: ‘We will continue to work with the government to find solutions.’ That recognises the consultative nature of this government. We are prepared to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to looking after ageing Australians; we are prepared to consult extensively, as I have done in the last 13 months that I have been Minister for Ageing; and we are prepared to consult, again, to make sure that we tweak and finetune a very courageous, a very well funded—