Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, we are seeing the federal government again fail to take responsibility for what is occurring regarding the outbreak of COVID-19 in the aged-care sector. The federal government has failed to take responsibility in the answers that were given through Minister Colbeck today. What's very clear is that the government has lost confidence in its strategy and in its person on front point, the person responsible for turning around aged care and making sure it is properly dealt with in this country.

This week the minister was sidelined from decision-making in his own portfolio. He was excluded from decision-making in the aged-care emergency response. And today in the House Mr Morrison refused on five occasions to get out of his seat and defend the minister's handling of aged care. On five occasions he failed to stand by the minister who has failed in his responsibilities for aged care in this country. When asked to defend the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Mr Morrison endorsed 13 ministers. Not one was Richard Colbeck. If Mr Morrison has no confidence in him then why should Australians? He has lost his responsibility and now he should lose that title.

The Morrison government, through this minister, have failed to listen to the report, entitled Neglect, that came out of the royal commission. They failed to take action. You hear these words from the minister: 'I listened', 'I talked', 'I considered'. What is missing is action. Despite the warnings from the Northern Hemisphere, the warnings from the experts and unions, the warnings from Dorothy Henderson Lodge, in March, and Newmarch, in April, he failed to take appropriate action, and he continues to fail to take appropriate action. Why are we in this mess? Because that failure is part of the pandemic of irresponsibility of this government when it comes to aged care.

The royal commission into aged care just today received a quality and safety report from the University of Queensland, which found that 11 per cent of Australia's 2,700 facilities were rated as providing high-quality care, 11 per cent were offering the worst quality of care, and everything in between. The government have failed to deliver a robust system. They've failed to deliver a system that can make a difference. They've tried to do it on the cheap. Why I say it's on the cheap is that there's report after report saying it's on the cheap. It's estimated that providing the highest quality of care, as found in homes with fewer residents, to all 200,000 residents in facilities would cost an estimated $3.2 billion more than the $18 billion spent by the federal government on aged care in 2018. The government needs to act.

We heard numerous examples of nonpayment of pandemic leave. We just heard that we have PPE but not for when the outbreak is about to occur, not as a risk management decision. They sais: 'We don't have enough PPE in our aged-care facilities. We don't have a plan on how to do that. We don't have a plan for how to use PPE in our aged-care facilities. But, when there's an outbreak, don't worry. We'll somehow find it and rush it down when the outbreak has already occurred.' That is after the event. You need to take action, not just sit back, listen, consider—'I'm hearing what people are saying.' It is about taking action. We've seen so many circumstances of people not receiving PPE, where action hasn't been taken by this government. Recently, the Health Services Union exposed actions that weren't taken in their industry, in aged care. I'll finish with this: an aged-care worker has called for the government to take action so that residential aged-care workers are protected— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.