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

Madam Acting Deputy President, I did actually use—if you go back and check Hansard'Prime Ministers Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison'. Each one of them failed to give priority to aged care by having its minister in the cabinet. This is an area of huge responsibility. We're an ageing nation. Senator Colbeck, the minister for aged care, comes from my home state of Tasmania. We have the fastest-ageing population, the highest number of people in this country, followed by South Australia. So he should know very well the challenges ahead of this nation when it comes to aged care and the amount of funding that is needed.

But let's go back to what happened in 2013, when then Prime Minister Abbott came to office. He cut $1.2 billion, the workforce supplement, to 350,000 aged-care workers—wait for it—18 days after being elected. Eighteen days! That's the priority of the Liberals when it comes to aged care. And let's go on to 2014. The Abbott government guaranteed that there would be a workforce strategy. But guess what? In 2016 the Department of Health confirmed there had been no movement in the development of a strategy. In 2017 Minister Wyatt appointed Professor Pollaers to chair the workforce task force. And what did that task force bring down? Fourteen recommendations in relation to the workforce. And what action has this government taken? None of those recommendations were acted on—none of them.

So, when the Prime Minister said there were no warnings of the challenges of the pandemic and the effect on the aged-care sector, it was nonsense—absolute nonsense. There have been warnings from the sector. There have been warnings from the unions. His own task force has warned them. We've seen the same thing day in, day out, with the aged-care royal commission, which this government, this Prime Minister, called into their own failings. But let's talk a little bit about the royal commission into aged care. We have the loss of life in this sector. We have the enormous amount of stress that's been placed on those people who work in aged care. We know already that there is no nationalised standard of training. We know they're underresourced. We know we need a much larger workforce.

But what happened around this country when the royal commission into aged care was called was that, when those workers who had their uniforms on went into businesses after they finished their shifts, or onto our trains, our trams and our buses, they were spat on and abused. That's how those workers were treated when the royal commission was called into this sector. That was totally unacceptable. And what we've seen now is this government trying to shift the blame as to what's happening in aged care. They don't want to accept any responsibility for it. Well, I'm sorry, but when it comes to being a minister of the Crown and being Prime Minister of this country, the buck stops with Minister Colbeck and the Prime Minister when it comes to aged care. The Prime Minister of the day has been, up until recently, standing by this minister's incompetence until he started to take away the responsibilities that this minister had in dealing with this pandemic and the effect of it on the aged-care sector.

Today, in the other place—in the House of Representatives—on five occasions the Prime Minister failed to stand up and support the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians. It's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary! But, then again, the hallmarks of this government and this Prime Minister are a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency and no integrity. They don't deliver; they make a lot of promises, they put out media releases and they get in front of the cameras, but they actually don't deliver. And they do not take any responsibility—it's always someone else's fault.

Today, the minister kept saying it's Labor's fault and that we're playing politics. Well, I, and people on this side of the chamber, will never apologise for standing up for the most vulnerable people in this country. At this point in time there are families who have lost their loved ones because of the incompetence of this government and because when the Prime Minister was Treasurer he gutted the aged-care sector and now won't take any responsibility for it. He's still trying to spin that, saying, 'Oh, no, we didn't take it; I didn't cut any funding.' Nonsense! Their budget papers reflect exactly that.

There is something to be said for a minister who comes into this chamber and apologises for his or her failings. They get some points for that and they get some respect for that. Things happen. But to deny the resources and the money that is available? Even when we talked about the question that I asked today of the minister, about the $205 million that was allocated for training and PPE, there was no accountability there. 'We don't have to wait for the audit.' Really? We're in a pandemic now. The fact is that staff were told they could have two masks to use for the day, or just one glove. I don't know why they couldn't have two gloves. Maybe the minister might be able to answer that next week? Maybe we can find out. Maybe there are only one-armed people working in aged care.

This is a very, very serious situation. This pandemic is by no means over; that means that the government of the day is responsible—it's responsible for those people who are in residential care. I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that there's not a person in this chamber who would have wanted to see anyone pass away in residential aged care due to COVID-19. But we had warnings when it came to Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House; those warnings were very evident and the government still failed to act.

The minister's own lacklustre performance does nothing to instil confidence in his ability to handle the portfolio. Already the Prime Minister has demonstrated that he doesn't have confidence in the minister to do his job, so how can the Australian people have confidence in this minister when his own Prime Minister fails to have that confidence in him?

What we need is for the Prime Minister to take the action necessary to ensure that there is a minister who is capable of dealing with the challenges in the aged-care sector at this point in time.

Senator Duniam interjecting—

Senator Siewert and I have sat on many inquiries into the aged-care sector—and also you, Senator Duniam; you have sat in on those. We've had many discussions, you and I, about the concerns around aged care, so it's not like people weren't aware and haven't been aware for some time. That's why Mark Butler had to work with the opposition of the day to try and rebuild. He set the foundations, but consecutive Liberal prime ministers have failed to address and carry on that very important work.

For the minister to say that the opposition haven't provided any suggestions in relation to the solutions that are needed, well, Senator Bilyk and I know very well that Julie Collins, the shadow minister for aged care, has spoken on many occasions to the minister and offered, as I did when I was the former assistant minister, to work with former Minister Wyatt. We were ready and willing at any time, but the minister of the day has to be able to comprehend what direction needs to be taken and to listen to that advice. If he were a smart minister, he would be working with the opposition today to resolve these issues because it's too important. It is too important.

A question has been asked on more than one occasion here today, and that is: if your mother or father or grandmother or grandfather was faced with having to go into aged care at this point in time, would you put them into residential care with this incompetent minister at the helm? I think we all know the answer, and it would be no. That's regrettable because the people who work in this sector believe in what they're doing but they need more resources. We need more staff. The challenges are only going to get greater over the next couple of decades. So we have to resource them. We have to support them. We need this government and we need the Prime Minister to step in, put in a minister who's capable and make sure that minister is a cabinet minister so they can fight for the resourcing and the funding that is needed around the cabinet table instead of putting in a junior minister that isn't up to the job. That's the sort of action that needs to be taken. We can't wait until Christmas for the annual reshuffle that no doubt is going to happen this year. We need that action. The Australian people need that action if they're going to have faith in the aged-care sector again and have any faith in this government.