Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to the debate on this matter of urgency. It is urgent that we respond to the crisis that has gripped some of the most vulnerable members of our community. It's been often said that we struggle with acknowledging death in our community. In visiting some of the amazing aged-care centres on the Central Coast, I have seen that there have been struggles there with cultural practices around the passing of people who are part of the community. We struggle to acknowledge death, especially of the aged, but Australians are facing the shame of incredible and preventable loss of life that has occurred on this government's watch in the midst of a crisis on a scale that we've not seen before. But there were some hints that they should have paid attention to.

COVID-19 has absolutely ravaged many aged-care communities in my state of New South Wales. In Victoria, in particular, the seeds of this disaster—the tragic loss of 328 irreplaceable lives, as of today—were sewn in the seven years of Liberal Party and National Party neglect of the very essential and critical aged-care sector. Real Australians whose families are mourning their loss are affected by this government's inaction. Real Australians are losing their lives. Real Australians are watching their friends pass away before their very eyes. I offer my sincere condolences to each and every family member and friend of those who have lost somebody in the aged-care sector.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Labor pushed this government to instigate a royal commission into the aged-care sector, but what we've seen from this government is that issues in the aged-care sector have been kicked down the road so many times that that's simply how they respond. Participants in the debate before me, including Senator Siewert, have indicated how many inquiries there have been and how many reports have been tabled but ignored. Our aged-care residents have suffered for a very long time, but the scale of their suffering and the scale of challenge that awaits Australians who are willing to open their eyes and see the level of despair, the failures of care and the deaths that are occurring in aged-care settings is something we cannot turn away from anymore. This government must own this matter. The government must respond.

There are, in fact, now 1,300 active cases of COVID-19 in care facilities in Victoria, and what we see from this Prime Minister is again the same pattern: it's anybody's problem, but it's not his. Twenty-three tragic deaths occurred in Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge, and the residents' experiences there should have been a wake-up call to Mr Morrison and his government. The warnings from the reports that emerged and from the countless testimonials of underfunding and poor regulation should have set alarm bells ringing in the cabinet, yet the Morrison government delayed the reports when they could have been crucial in helping the Victorian government tackle their own emerging COVID aged-care crisis.

For seven long years, this Liberal-National government meant cuts, buck-passing and a revolving door of ministers, leaving care of our vulnerable aged-care residents at the bottom of this government's list of priorities. They've been willing to privatise home-care packages and been enabling of the privatisation of home-care packages as a way to cut the backlog of over 100,000 cases, and we see that the aged-care sector is almost completely incapable of serving the twin masters of care and profit.

The only reform that Mr Morrison is proposing is to strip from embattled aged-care minister Richard Colbeck full control over his portfolio and hand responsibility to the already flat-out health department in the middle of a pandemic. That's not leadership. That's changing deck seats on the Titanic. Minister Colbeck cannot answer the most basic of questions about his brief. He can't tell us clearly whether he did or did not brief the cabinet on the interim report of the aged-care commission or, crucially, how many Australians have actually died of the coronavirus in aged care. We did get out of him today in question time, though, that he is speaking to Mr Morrison about this matter daily. If that is the case, Mr Morrison might try to run but he cannot hide from the fact that he has known, on the testimony of Minister Colbeck in here today, on a daily basis what is going on in aged care. What's clear to us is that Minister Colbeck is not across his brief and, with Mr Morrison refusing to acknowledge the failures of his own government, someone needs to stand up and take leadership before this already parlous situation worsens.

The royal commission thus far has confirmed that the Morrison government in fact has no plan for aged care. The royal commission has heard that the Morrison government is still not prepared at this stage to deal with this crisis. Aged-care homes sent hundreds of requests, day after day, to this government, begging them, pleading with them, to provide them with appropriate levels of PPE to protect their workers, asking for that to be sent to them at the front line from the national stockpile. But just like it has failed to respond to aged-care residents, the government has failed to respond to the workforce. The complaints of staff have been ignored, and the consequences are the levels of COVID activity amongst that workforce.

The government also cut out thousands of support staff in aged-care facilities from the retention payment that was gifted to nurses. Minister Colbeck is so unfamiliar with his portfolio that he forgets that, to make these facilities run, they need a range of people. They need cooks, cleaners and other staff that make up 40 per cent of the entire workforce. Instead, the government locked these hardworking and caring staff out of the bonus payments, despite them running the same risk of infection.

The government has no plan for the workforce in aged care. It has spent a mere half of the money allocated for the surge workforce which will be critical for dealing with the outbreaks in nursing homes. I quote the royal commissioner, Hon. Tony Pagone QC, and Lynelle Briggs AO, who said damningly:

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.

Mr Morrison, to this day, continues to claim to the Australian people that he had no forewarning of the impending crisis. On 29 July, that's what he said. But the facts reveal the truth. The truth is that Mr Morrison has been lying to the Australian public. We know what he knew. We know when he knew it. He knew it in plenty of time; he just chose not to act.

Scott Morrison knows what he needs to do. He needs to cut through the bureaucracy right now. He needs to establish clear lines of responsibility for this vital portfolio and ensure that there is an aged-care workforce strategy. For six years we've been waiting for him to deliver that. That's when it was promised—six years ago—and, to this day, it is still not in place. Just like during our summer of bushfires, when the Prime Minister skipped off to Hawaii and said, 'I'm not the man holding the hose,' once again, this time in aged care, he is not the man helping people. 'It's not my responsibility,' he says, trying to convince the Australian people that aged care is not the responsibility of the federal government and that he is not the one who owes an apology to the families of people who have died in aged care because of the failures on his watch.