Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Labor Party for moving this urgency motion today and allowing me to present a few facts rather than headlines and shallow speculation. It is a fact that spending in aged care, under the coalition government, has increased since Labor left government, and it will have almost doubled by the financial year 2022-23. Even the ABC's Fact Check has recognised that there has been an increase in spending. It is a fact that Labor took no policy to the last election to provide additional funding for home-care places, for aged-care quality or for workforces in mainstream residential aged care. It is a fact that, under our coalition government, home-care packages, residential-care places and funding have gone up. Home-care packages are up from just over 60,000 when Labor was in government in 2012-13 to over 164,000 by 2022-23. At the same time, funding will have gone up 258 per cent due to the growth in high-level packages. As at the end of March this year, 98.5 per cent of Australians waiting for a home-care package at their assessed level had been offered support. There has been a significant reduction in waiting times for people in urgent need of care.

It is a fact that our government recognises that packages for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those living in regional, rural and remote communities need targeted and unique care. We targeted $10 million for the Aged Care Regional, Rural and Remote Infrastructure Grant. We've committed to the forward estimates to 2022-23 funding of over $238 million for the Rural, Regional and Other Special Needs Building Fund. We've provided $258 million specifically for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program.

It is a fact that the industry-led Aged Care Workforce Industry Council was formed under our watch in May last year, and we are working to develop and support career pathways for aged care. It's a fact that our government is investing an initial $23 million to introduce a serious incident response scheme for residential care, and this will commence from July next year. It is also a fact that, on the back of multiple reports into aged care under successive governments, we established the royal commission into aged care. The interim report that Labor is so keen to focus on criticises successive governments of all persuasions over many years. At least our government is taking action. I didn't see Labor set up a serious incident response scheme and I haven't seen Labor increase home care packages. In fact, until the devastating COVID crisis, Labor had been silent on the issue altogether.

It is a fact that now our immediate focus must be on assisting those in aged-care facilities that have been struck with COVID. This is our priority in the immediate stage. We have made an unlimited surge workforce available to affected facilities. Commonwealth-funded surge staff have been deployed to all infected Victorian facilities, and ADF personnel are assisting our response. It is a fact that we have community transmission. You're highly likely to see COVID in aged care. We saw that at Newmarch House, we saw it in Tasmania and now we see that, where you have widespread community transmission that has been caused by poor quarantine management, you tragically have large numbers in the facilities in Victoria—largely Melbourne and surrounds. In regional areas and in states where community transmission is low, outbreaks in facilities are being contained and managed if they are there at all. In states where we have no community transmissions, there are no outbreaks at all. So it is a fact that our government will continue to work with our aged-care industry to improve services and outcomes and to provide the best care for senior Australians, who deserve respect, dignity and compassion, not politics.