Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Older Australians most certainly do deserve better than this. What we've seen here today is an absolute disgrace and outrage. The Labor Party comes in here, speaking of cases, people's lives and families that have been devastated. To come in here and make political points off the back of those very, very sad situations and stories is an absolute disgrace. I am quite set back by this, I've got to say. There have been 335 deaths in our aged-care facilities. That's a number, but it actually represents individuals. It represents communities. Importantly, it represents families—families that, over the last few months, have had a significant amount of grief. They're dealing with that. To have Labor come in here and drag out these stories and make a political point, conflating two different versions of stories together to make a political point against a minister that has actually done a significant amount to ensure that this pandemic—I mean, it is a crisis. It is a crisis that we're dealing with, and dealing with it has been the No. 1 priority of this government. In fact, the Prime Minister has said that this is his No. 1 focus right now. The focus of this government is ensuring that we can deal with this crisis and this pandemic.

Everywhere across the world when there has been an outbreak like what we've seen in Victoria, there have always been cases in aged-care facilities. It's the ability to deal with those cases and those outbreaks, and deal with them in such a way that you minimise the impact—importantly, the impact on lives. If that side were actually serious about what's going on then they'd actually be asking questions about what we're doing and how we could actually mitigate further the risk that has been caused by the outbreak that's occurred under a Labor government down there in Victoria. The Prime Minister is absolutely committed to ensuring that we are able to deal with this, that the communities are responsible and that the families that are involved are getting the best possible support. All services with an active case of COVID-19 are receiving support from the Australian government, including a single case manager and access to PPE, testing at residential aged-care facilities and access to a surge workforce and supplementation. We heard the minister explain that in one particular facility they had to replace an entire workforce in 24 hours. An outbreak occurred that of course went through the workplace.

Right now, I want to pay tribute to those who are in the healthcare sector, particularly in aged care. My sister works in an aged-care facility and I know that she turns up to work not knowing what will happen. But she bravely fronts up to work, knowing that what is protecting her is a mask or a face shield. They are brave Australians who are doing this. Support for them is absolutely critical, and we saw that in that one facility in Victoria: an entire workforce substituted within 24 hours.

We heard before from Senator Gallagher, who spoke about so-called cuts which have been made in the aged-care sector. It's only Labor that could actually call a billion dollars worth of increases a cut. Labor's claim has actually been debunked by the ABC's Fact Check. Despite Labor's plans for $387 billion in higher taxes, there was nothing in their plan leading up to the last election that showed any sort of commitment to increasing and supporting the aged-care sector like this government has done. Nothing! They have the gall to say these things when they actually have no plan. They've not put forward anything that would suggest they have a commitment like this government has. Labor's hypocrisy is evident and obvious at this time, with this sort of nonsense that we see coming into this place.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety's interim report said it was difficult not to be critical of successive governments' failures to fix the aged-care system. This government is committed to working with the sector— (Time expired)