Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Over the last fortnight, we have focused very much on this government's appalling record in relation to aged care, a record that extends the entire seven years that it has been in government. We have watched with horror the tragic loss of over 450 older people in aged-care facilities across Australia as a result of COVID-19. It has been right that we have focused over the last couple of weeks on the tragic loss of life in our aged-care facilities from COVID-19. But there is another group connected to our aged-care sector that is also important that we focus on, and that is the aged-care workers who have held this system together over the last few months and indeed over the last few years.

One of the reasons I want to raise this tonight is that tomorrow is 'Thank you day' for aged-care workers. It's a day when all of us have an opportunity to say thank you to the aged-care workers who are holding our system together and are dedicating their lives to looking after our loved ones. I remember visiting my own grandfather not that long ago in aged care. I remember the care that he was provided by loving, caring workers in the aged-care system. I know that my family was very grateful for the support that they provided. I know that many of us can say the same things about our own loved ones.

Indeed, over this COVID-19 crisis, while we have seen a terrible loss of life in our aged-care sector, what we've also seen is some incredible work from our aged-care workers under extremely difficult circumstances. We've known for many years now that aged-care work is paid too little and is too insecure, with many of the positions being casual or part time and insecure. That has really come to the fore during COVID-19. The fact that people really are paid so poorly for the work that they do, and are employed on such an insecure basis, has come home to bite through COVID-19.

But there have been other things we have observed with the aged-care workforce that weren't apparent until COVID-19 hit. We've seen the lack of training in infection control for aged-care workers, training that people want to receive but simply have not been able to receive. We've seen the shocking failure to provide sufficient PPE—masks, gloves and other PPE—to ensure that our aged-care workers are kept safe and to ensure that the people they care for are kept safe. We've seen the shocking understaffing of aged-care facilities. Again, we've known this for a long time but it has really become apparent through the COVID-19 crisis. We've seen the government's shameful exclusion of a large proportion of the aged-care workforce from receiving the retention bonus that the government has handed out. So there has been a lot that our aged-care workers have had to put up with beyond just the entrance of COVID-19 into the aged-care facilities that they work for. There is an awful lot that we have to say thank you for to our aged-care workers.

But it's not enough for us to just say thank you and move on to the next day. COVID-19 has to be a turning point for how we deliver aged care, for how we fund aged care and how we care for our aged-care workers. We have known for years that there have been fundamental problems in our aged-care sector and that our aged-care workforce has been severely neglected, along with aged-care residents. The time has well and truly come for some action to be taken to address the problems that we have seen for so long.

We keep waiting for this government to come up with some kind of plan for what it is going to do about the aged-care workforce, to support them, nurture them and pay them what they are entitled to. But we haven't seen that plan. That's one of the reasons why last week the leader of the Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, came out with his own plan on behalf of the Labor Party of what we would do to fix the aged-care crisis in this country. It contained eight points, including, most importantly, setting minimum staffing levels for our aged-care facilities. This is something that the government has run away from year after year and it is simply unacceptable that we don't have the required number of nursing and personal-care staff to care for the aged-care residents who need that help. We need to see adequate PPE, we need to see better training and we need to see a lot more for our aged-care sector. Thank you to our aged-care workers. We're on your side.