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

I thank the senator for the question. The government isn't and hasn't been ignoring those warnings. In fact, this government has continued to act to reform the aged-care sector, including the calling of the royal commission, which is currently investigating in a forensic manner the aged-care sector. But, while the royal commission is being undertaken, we have continued to act to reform the aged-care sector. Beginning from July last year, we've had the new Aged Care Quality Standards that we've put in place. We've instituted a new charter of rights for residents in residential aged care. We've completed the legislative process to bring together the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission as one entity, and that entity began its work as a single entity on 1 January this year. So we have continued to act in a reform sense as the royal commission has continued.

In respect of the story in the media this morning, those things are clearly unacceptable—clearly unacceptable. And that's why we've progressed the work on the Serious Incident Response Scheme, and in that Serious Incident Response Scheme we've incorporated some things that didn't exist previously, including resident-on-resident attacks, which a lot of these issues that were reported this morning are. We've included home care in the Serious Incident Response Scheme and we actually brought forward the funding. Instead of waiting until the budget in October of this year, we announced the funding for the progression of the Serious Incident Response Scheme in June this year because we understand it's an important piece of work and we wanted to make sure it was being progressed. So not only do we recognise these issues but we understand that they are not acceptable, and we continue to reform the sector to improve the outcomes for residents in residential aged care and aged care across the sector.