Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I do welcome the questions that Senator Watt has put on the record these last two days. This is an extremely serious matter, and I applaud him for bringing it forward. It should definitely be subject to appropriate scrutiny here in this chamber. It's nice to see that question time is used to investigate what are very important, weighty matters—matters that have clearly affected individuals very severely.

Although, I am a little critical as I think at times Senator Watt moved into more of a political mode. I think he did himself a disservice when he said that the minister's been bumbling and things like that as what we really need to focus on is not the minister involved but the 71 residents who've been impacted by this unfortunate set of events. We also need to learn the lessons and make sure these sorts of things do not happen again. While Senator Watt has said that a number of actions have taken place, I do think it's important to have on the record exactly what those were. Certainly it is not true to say that somehow People Care Pty Ltd, the operator of this centre, was not subject to scrutiny or action from the Commonwealth department. Indeed, from the advice I've got from the Department of Health in Queensland, I believe the sanctions include ones as recent as 13 July this year, 11 May 2017 and 3 June 2016 going back to 30 April 2007.