Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Again, I have to say that I can't agree with the premise of the question put by Senator McCarthy, because we have been providing support to workers in aged care since March—since early in the aged-care pandemic. Maybe Labor are a bit concerned that they are so late to the party on this issue that they've only discovered aged care in recent weeks. But we have been working with the aged-care sector in this country since January to assist them and to prepare them for COVID-19. We have been providing advice and support to the sector on COVID-19 since January. The measures that Minister Hunt and I announced today were, in fact, a continuation of existing measures that we'd put in place previously, in recognition of the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic continues.