Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That's reminded me to make a quick comment, which is that in my second reading contribution I did acknowledge the extra effort that has been put into the provision of extra supports for services where there has been an outbreak. My criticism—not criticism, but comment—extends more broadly, where we know there is understaffing in aged care, and that is continuing. It is shown by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation that, in fact, this is continuing. So, the situation prior to the pandemic still exists in many aged care services. We're having the aged care royal commission for a reason and those reasons haven't gone away. But I do very readily acknowledge that you have made a very strong effort and made a lot of investment in helping those facilities that have had an outbreak of coronavirus.

That takes me to the point of your comments about, particularly, home care services, where people have suspended them because they are in isolation and were concerned to make sure that they didn't have anyone in their home. Are you assured that, where an older person in receipt of a package has decided to suspend the service, services are not continuing to charge people? What action have you taken to make sure that services are not continuing to charge services, even though they're not being provided, and what checking up have you done on that?