Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Keneally's motion. One might think that the lessons of the first wave of COVID-19 might have been learned to avoid the tragedies we have seen in aged care in Victoria, but they weren't. Unfortunately, that's not surprising. It's not surprising because governments have not paid enough attention to aged-care events playing out every day in aged care, even prior to COVID-19. The system has been limping along for some time, with band-aids being applied, sometimes one on top of the other.

The government needs to take charge of aged care, and they need to be doing so for the purposes of COVID-19—which is not going away; we can't be sure that it's going away anytime soon—but also for the long term. Being a person who likes to put forward propositions, I say that one of the first things that needs to happen in the short term is we need to have focus on this issue. That means a single minister for aged care, not one sharing other portfolios. The Morrison government should move to have a minister for aged care working solely on that particular portfolio.

We also need to have a COVID plan for residential aged care so everyone has a consistent understanding of the response and how to respond. In the longer term, we need to address the whole issue of aged care, of course informed by things like the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Nothing I say here is a criticism of any of the workers involved; they have done their best under the circumstances. Finally, I would also like to extend my condolences to those who have passed.