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

Too little, too late—that's the reality of the actions, or the lack of actions earlier, by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Richard Colbeck, and this government. Let's put things into context, shall we? On the 685 older Australians who died during the pandemic, we had a government senator explaining just now to the chamber how it is all the Victorian government's fault. It's amazing how it is okay for this government to shift the blame but not to accept responsibility for its failings not just since March this year by neglecting older Australians and some of the most vulnerable Australians in this country; in fact, it's been seven years. I have lost count how many ministers for aged care there have been in that time.

I was talking to a colleague and I asked, 'Who do you think has been the worst aged-care minister in this country in the last seven years?' Names like Ken Wyatt, Sussan Ley, Greg Hunt and Mitch Fifield came to mind, but I think we agreed in our discussion that it is this current minister who has failed older Australians. He's been censured by this chamber. What we are seeing now is it's not only the 685 older Australians who have died; it's the impact on their families, their loved ones. During this pandemic, it's not only been about those who have lost their lives; it has been about the staff who have had the responsibility for caring for them. They have not been supported by this government. Not only were they not provided with the adequate PPE and support that they needed, being on the frontline; we know this government has also neglected them for the last seven years, not ensuring that they were adequately resourced. They certainly don't get paid the remuneration that they deserve. We have just seen cuts. Why should we expect anything different from the Prime Minister when, in fact, he cut almost $2 billion out of aged care when he was Treasurer and used this sector as an ATM?

So the public have no confidence in this minister. They have no more confidence in him than we on this side of the chamber do. We know countless reports have outlined the issues very clearly, after days and days of evidence given to various committees and inquiries into the aged-care sector trying to get to the bottom of why this system is so broken, and put forward to the government of the day solutions for how it can do its job better by providing older Australians the support they deserve. But what have we got? Absolutely no response at all from this government.

What we then saw was them calling for a royal commission into the aged-care sector, after they had been in government for a number of years and failed to address the concerns that had been collected in somewhere between 12 and 16 different reports into the failings of the aged-care sector. They were also told of the struggle that a lot of the providers themselves were having to keep their heads above water. But what we haven't seen is any leadership from this government. We have a minister who, quite frankly, is no more interested than the minister they had when they first came into government. We saw Senator Fifield take on that responsibility, but the only thing he was ever interested in was the arts. He certainly wasn't interested in older Australians. And we've seen no improvement over the seven years that they've been in government.

What we see now—finally!—is that the spotlight has been shone on the aged-care sector in this country because of the royal commission, because of this government's failing. The media now has some interest in aged care, and this is the opportunity for this government to address all those concerns that the community has had, address all the recommendations from those countless reports that have been put forward and finally do something. Do something so that those 685 older, vulnerable Australians in the aged-care sector, who died because of the failure of this government to provide the leadership and the support that was needed in this sector, have not died in vain. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.