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

It is really disappointing that the Labor Party are using this opportunity to play politics with the pandemic, rather than being constructive in actually dealing with it. They talk about the royal commission. It's nearly a year since the royal commission brought down its final report,Respect, care and dignity. Yet what is the plan from the Labor Party to deal with aged care after the royal commission report? It is a comprehensive report. We have not only responded to every recommendation but put over $18 billion on the table for the reform of the sector. But their response is, 'We'll spend more than the other mob.' That's it. That's all we get from Labor. They play their dirty, personal, nasty politics. That's what they do. That's what their whole plan is. We saw that before Christmas. That's what they do.

This is an extraordinarily difficult circumstance. It's not just a pandemic; this is a global pandemic. We have a deadly virus. People will contract it throughout the community and, tragically, some of them will die. We work, from the Prime Minister down, within this government every day in support of all Australians with respect to the pandemic. We took action early and closed the borders. We put the private hospital agreement in place to support the state health systems when they needed it, and they did need it during January of this year through the omicron outbreak. That private hospital agreement has also provided support for residents in aged care in the context of surge workforce and during 2020, in particular, beds for residents who needed them.

We vaccinated the aged-care population in 2021. We commenced the vaccination booster program for aged-care residents on 8 November last year. On 12 December, or thereabouts, we got advice to accelerate the program. On Christmas Eve, we got advice to accelerate it even further. The period between vaccination and booster was shortened. All through early January this year, we set out to bring forward the boosters for every facility in the country, and now every facility has received boosters, and we've started going around again. We've done over 130 facilities for a second time, and, as of last night, 77.4 per cent of those residents eligible for a booster have taken up that opportunity.

We continue to work in the interests of residents. We've provided vaccines. We've provided PPE throughout the program. Have there been some problems along the way? Yes, there have been. Of course there have been. We had supply chain problems earlier this year, which is what we were working out when the Senate and Senator Gallagher wanted us to be there on that morning when the hearings were supposed to be held. That morning, not while I was at the cricket, we were working on bringing the vaccines forward and we were working on ensuring that the rapid antigen tests and the PPE required were getting to aged-care facilities. Have there been some issues there? Yes. So we continue to do that.

The Labor Party can play their dirty, nasty personal politics, and we know that's their campaign strategy, but they have no plan. Why would you trust the mob that couldn't safely insulate your ceiling to run the response to a pandemic? Why would you trust them to do that? They could not build a school hall. How can they manage the recovery from a pandemic? How can they do that? We, from the Prime Minister down, have applied our attention to supporting Australians through the pandemic. We will continue to do that.

Tragically, some Australians are going to catch the virus, and, absolutely tragically, we all know the impact of a personal loss. We all feel that. We've all felt that loss. We extend our condolences to all those who have suffered that loss, but our focus will be on managing the pandemic, while the opposition play politics with the pandemic.