Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the Minister's response.

We want an answer. We in the Labor Party want an answer to this question. Senator Ciccone asked Minister Colbeck a very straightforward question last Tuesday:

Minister, how many Australians have died whilst waiting for their home package in the last financial year?

Whether by shame or incompetence, the minister has failed to provide this chamber with an answer. I wrote to the minister yesterday asking him to provide a response to the chamber after question time. We heard nothing from the minister yesterday and his silence, his lack of an answer here today, has necessitated this action. I note that since last Tuesday a number of government ministers have come to this place and provided answers to questions they took on notice or updated responses that they had given to the chamber. This is standard practice for ministers. It's one of their most basic responsibilities. Yet, Minister Colbeck has even failed to do this today.

At Senate estimates on 23 October, Senator Watt and Senator O'Neill asked officials about the number of people who had died in the 2018-19 financial year while waiting for their home care packages. Just to be clear: in October, Labor senators asked, 'How many people died in the 2018-19 financial year'—a year that had come and gone—'while waiting for their home care packages?' We know the figure for the previous financial year: 16,000 Australians died before they got the home care package that they were assessed as needing. Senators Watt and O'Neill were told that the department didn't have the updated figures yet for this last financial year. When pressed for a date that they would be available, the department responded: 'It is certainly close. I think it would be within a month'. Well, a month has come and gone. They have missed that deadline. We're now in the final sitting days of parliament for this year, and we are still without an answer from the minister and his department.

This is just like the contempt that the Prime Minister is showing for ministerial standards in relation to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Here we have the minister for ageing showing contempt for this parliament and, more disgracefully, showing contempt for older Australians who need a home care package. Here we are, in the parliament, and the minister is refusing to answer a basic question in his portfolio. That may not grab the attention of the public in the same way it is grabbed by a minister in the other place who is being investigated by the New South Wales Police Force through a criminal task force—