Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 18 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that a letter has been received from Senator Lines proposing an urgency motion, as follows:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Senate to:

(a) note:

(i) even before COVID-19, the Morrison Government had pushed the aged care system into crisis and older Australians were suffering,

(ii) the aged-care system has endured a revolving door of ministers - with seven in seven years,

(iii) the Morrison Government has cut funding and removed safeguards in aged care, including:

(A) abolishing the $1.2 billion aged-care workforce supplement for 350,000 front-line aged care workers within 18 days of forming Government in 2013, and

(B) Mr Morrison, as treasurer, cutting $1.7 billion from the aged care budget;

(iv) almost 150 recommendations have been made to the Morrison Government in a dozen inquiries and reviews, to protect older Australians in aged-care, but too many recommendations have been ignored, including:

(A) six years after then-Minister Fifield promised an aged-care workforce strategy, Australia still does not have one, and

(B) three years after the Australian Law Reform Commissioner recommended a Serious Incident Response Scheme to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect in aged care, Australia still does not have one;

(v) the Morrison Government's own statistics reveal that these cuts, confusion and chaos have resulted in:

(A) more than 100,000 Australians are waiting for their approved home care package,

(B) the average waiting time for older Australians going into residential aged care has blown out by more than 100 days, and

(C) Australians needing high-level home care are waiting, on average, 3 years for help;

(vi) Royal Commissioners, the Hon Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs AO, said that, "Had the Australian Government acted upon previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided; and

(b) call on the Prime Minister and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians to:

(i) recognise that Australia's aged care crisis is seven years in the making,

(ii) apologise to the many mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers that would be alive today if not for these seven years of neglect, and

(iii) demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame, and take responsibility for the crisis in our aged-care system."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.