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

At the request of Senator Keneally, I move:

That the Senate notes that the Morrison government has neglected Australians in aged care by ignoring the warnings from COVID-19 outbreaks in the northern hemisphere, at Dorothy Henderson Lodge, and at Newmarch House, resulting in unnecessary deaths.

We on this side of the chamber have spoken very passionately on our concerns about the failings of this government in the way that it's dealt with COVID-19, the pandemic and its effect, and the loss of life in the aged-care sector. This morning the Senate required the minister to confront the Senate and address his failings. After he gave his address to the Senate, which in no way reassured any of us, let alone the Australian people, that we could have more faith in this minister, he just turned his back and left the chamber. Instead of staying in this chamber and listening to the debate to at least acknowledge the number of older Australians—in excess of 360—in residential care who have died through his failings, he left the chamber. He may think that he can run away from this issue but he cannot run away from this crisis. He cannot run away from this crisis, and neither can the Prime Minister.

Let's put a bit of context into this debate, shall we? When elected seven years ago the Abbott government, from the outset, failed to build on the provisions that had already been laid out for building a new foundation for aged care. After years of consultation with the then opposition, former cabinet minister Mark Butler laid out the foundations for Living Better Living Longer. He had worked with the opposition at that time in a unified way, and with the sector, to bring about those changes. The unfortunate thing is that after we lost government we saw, under the incoming Liberal government, under Mr Abbott, a churn of inadequate, uncaring, uninterested ministers being given the portfolio responsibility of aged care, going back to Ministers Andrews, Fifield, Morrison himself, Ley, Wyatt, Hunt and now Colbeck. The very sad thing is that none of the Liberal Prime Ministers, whether Abbott, Turnbull or now Morrison, have given aged care the decency—