Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That the Labor Party have again sought to engage in the politics of smear and blame is testament to the fact that they are bereft of ideas and policy. They are an entity focused solely on negativity and profiting politically from human misery. Today's MPI and the litany of repetitive and malicious questions and statements directed at our aged-care minister borders on obsession.

The root cause of the second wave in Victoria and in the bulk of Australia can be found in the failings of the Victorian state government and their failed hotel quarantine program, their failed community transmission program and their failure to consult with the federal government when they pulled 100 aged-care staff out of the St Basil's aged-care centre with as little as 24 hours notice. Don't you think you would've at least rung up and had some backup in place before you pulled the staff out and left those residents to fend for themselves? We shut down in March so that the state governments would have enough time to get their health systems up to scratch. The federal government has funded hundreds of billions of dollars for the state governments to get their health system procedures up to scratch, to get their quarantine up to scratch and to get their community transmission up to scratch, yet the one government that failed us, the Victorian Labor government, was the one with the strictest rules and the worst execution.

Those opposite will do anything to run cover for the Victorian Premier. They will constantly run cover for the Victorian Premier. Not once in question time here in the last two weeks have we had a question about how we're going to get out of this, because these guys opposite don't want to get out of this. They want to keep the country locked down because Labor love command and control.

In a global pandemic, with a new and unknown virus disproportionately affecting the elderly, it was a horrific reality that it was inevitable that some elderly Australians would, regrettably, pass away from this virus. All loss of life is tragic. But those opposite come into this place, screeching and preaching that the minister is responsible for every death and that, had they been in government, no-one would have died from this virus. It is ludicrous. As the Chief Medical Officer in Victoria has already stated, a number of these people counted as COVID deaths were already in palliative care. That seems to have been overlooked. We are supposed to be fighting our common enemy—the virus and the resulting economic carnage—but, of course, the Labor Party want to find a scapegoat for political pointscoring, and, unfortunately, the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians has become the distraction that Labor need to divert attention from the Victorian Premier's gross failings.

The unfair and dishonest language used in this motion demeans us all. We've heard mistruths spoken again this afternoon by those opposite, suggesting that the LNP has cut $1.2 billion out of aged care. Let me tell you: the ABC, who are no great friends of the coalition, have said that this claim is misleading. Yet, those opposite continually repeat the same old mistruths, time after time after time, instead of asking some constructive questions about how we're going to get out of this and how we're going to look after our children. They're the ones who have been forgotten in all this. They're the people who will have to inherit the debt and inherit this new way of living. Hopefully, we can restore their freedoms. I know some of the state premiers are intent on keeping the place locked down and destroying any liberty left in this country.

I don't know what I can say, but this idea that the minister has avoided scrutiny is a farcical claim. He has come into this chamber every day for the last two weeks, and he has stood up and answered those questions. He faces the media and he answers their questions. He has been doing an outstanding job. What's going on here is nothing short of bullying for crass political pointscoring purposes. I take issue with the notion thrown up by this motion that the minister—or, indeed, any member of the government—has responded to the pandemic with self-congratulation or hubris. I think, if anything, the pandemic has humbled us all. An invisible enemy which we have been thus far unable to completely defeat reminds us all of our shared humanity. The Labor Party, in their relentless focus on this, seem to imply, firstly, that they have a mortgage on compassion and, secondly, that somehow they could have prevented to a much greater extent the spread of the virus.

We know how the state Labor government managed the outbreak in Victoria, yet we hear nothing from those opposite. The most sinister implication of this MPI from those opposite seems to be that those on this side of the chamber don't care about our elderly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those in the coalition care deeply about our elderly. We all love our parents, and this attempt to imply otherwise is just woeful. In my first speech, I said that there is no substitute for mum and dad. It's why I fight. I fight to place the importance of the family at the front and centre of everything I do because, when it comes to child care and aged care, there are some things governments can't do as well as the family. We should remember who set up the royal commission. We want to hear the stories and to do our best to make sure that aged care is the best we can possibly make it. The fact is that 97 per cent of aged care is COVID-free. This is a good result both by objective standards and when compared with the rest of the world. It is not a perfect result, but, against an insidious enemy like the virus, it is a good result.

Labor seem to think it is acceptable to lie in the context of this debate. We know their repeated claim that this government cut aged-care funding. It is a brazen lie. Funding has increased by almost $10 billion under the coalition government. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the Victorian Chief Medical Officer himself said that people dying with COVID are dying with COVID rather than from COVID but they are being included in the count. For those on the other side to be gloating over these deaths and saying that they were all unavoidable is despicable. He noted that many deaths classified as being COVID have been patients in palliative care. Palliative care is one of the toughest parts of our healthcare system. It is about kindness and minimising suffering. This is an unfortunate reality.

I want to go now to another important issue, which is that, according to those opposite, we haven't had a plan for COVID. Those opposite us love to refer to the royal commission, but they never actually refer to the medical officers who put the submissions in to the royal commission. They're happy to refer to the barristers, the non-medical experts. I will conclude by remarking on comment 7 from the witness statement of Brendan Murphy, the Chief Medical Officer:

In January 2020, the Australian Government led the preparation of the Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) (COVID Response Plan). This was published on 18 February 2020 and was activated on 27 February 2020. This plan addressed the response to aged care in the context of the overall Commonwealth, State and Territory response plan.

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