Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Have you taken the opportunity to go and talk to those who work in the aged-care sector? I very much doubt anyone on that side of the chamber has. We want to see what the policy is. Are we just waiting for the Commission of Audit so that they can announce the cuts and advise us that that $1.1 billion that was set aside for the workers in the sector will go into general revenue—or will it go to the providers?

The opposition want to see those workers supported, but we also want to see that older Australians are looked after. The minister representing the minister responsible for aged care had plenty of time to outline what he has planned. Where is the future? We know that on 1 July changes will come into effect. When Mark Butler was the minister for aged care under our government, he developed a policy in consultation with the sector to ensure that older Australians had better services and were looked after. We put a plan in place to look after those in the aged-care sector. But what do we hear today? Nothing.

We had a senator on the other side just talking about being offended. Every Australian should be ashamed of having a government that refuses to outline what it has planned and what its policies are going forward. When Tony Abbott was going to the election, he said: 'There will be no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no cuts to pensions,' but that was never put in writing, so we know we cannot take Tony Abbott's word— (Time expired)