Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

nator McCARTHY (—) (): I rise to speak on this matter of utmost importance to Australians. We're all very privileged to be here in this place holding positions of leadership, and our communities have vested their trust in us to display the qualities of leadership they expect, especially in a time that is one of the most testing we face as Australians. But at a time when we most needed leadership, to be guided with a sure hand through the many trials this pandemic has thrown at us, we have had an utter failure by this Prime Minister and his government to lead us, and nowhere is that failure of leadership being felt more than in remote Australia.

The federal government has failed and ignored remote communities during the pandemic. The vaccination rollout, booster shots, aged care and supply of RATs are federal responsibilities that have been bungled and mismanaged by Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Some territory communities still have double dose rates below 50 per cent, and we have seen concerning outbreaks at aged-care centres. Aged care is in crisis. Remote communities are running out of RATs and the health and aged-care workforce out bush and in large centres is strained. In Alice Springs there are cases being reported of elderly people being left without services under their home-care packages, elderly and vulnerable people left alone without a change of bed linen, assistance in home cleaning and personal care for weeks. I suspect this is the tip of a dreadful iceberg. How many vulnerable Territorians are there waiting in vain for their home-care package services to be delivered who have no-one to advocate for them, who have no family close by?

I'm informed the services aren't being delivered because of a drastic workforce shortage, and there are no plans in place from the federal government to assist. These cases of elderly people being left without services under their home-care packages is a direct result of this government's failure to implement the findings of the royal commission into aged care. These are the consequences of not properly remunerating our aged-care workforce—issues that were being felt long before COVID and have been exacerbated by this pandemic. It's our elders who are paying the price.

If these are the failures we know about in the urban centres where there is some scrutiny, what is the case in remote bush communities? Out of sight is so often out of mind at the best of times out there. In speaking with aged-care service providers in some remote territory communities, I'm told that the federal government has not supplied one single RAT to these providers—not one. Any that they have been able to get their hands on have been paid for from their own existing funding, putting pressures on other areas of service delivery with these centres. The RATs they have been able to get are prioritised for the vulnerable elderly. There is a shortage of RATs and PPE for the aged-care service workforce, adding extra strain to underpaid and under-resourced workers.

While the service provider workforce is out there on the ground caring for the elderly, Commonwealth agencies have been instructed to work from home. The federal government has completely abandoned the field in remote communities. Imagine how this leaves an exhausted and underpaid workforce feeling? They're out there doing the hard yards with zero support from the federal agencies. There is no sign of the National Indigenous Australians Agency in the bush. What a disgrace.

The failure by the government to manage the omicron outbreak is being felt disproportionately by women and children in remote Australia. Family and domestic violence services have been forced to expend their emergency relief funds on RATs because, again, zero have been forthcoming from the federal government. So many have absolutely nothing left, with five months to go until the end of financial year. There is a drastic shortage of alternative emergency accommodation, and women and children are being left in dangerous, life-threatening situations because of this.

We held a teams meeting with a lot of these organisations, who spoke to us—to me; to our candidate for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour; and to Warren Snowdon, the current member for Lingiari—expressing directly these concerns about how domestic and family violence has increased during the COVID pandemic. They gave examples of their inability to get women out of some of our communities. Again, they've had to rely on their own funds. The Alice Springs Women's Shelter has had to pay an extraordinary amount of money out of its own funds for rapid antigen tests to be available. This should not be happening.

There has been no response from the federal government to the crisis. There are now 26,612 active coronavirus cases, with the virus infiltrating every region and many remote Aboriginal communities. There are over 6,000 active cases in the Northern Territory. As of this morning, 174 people with COVID were in Territory hospitals, and on Sunday, tragically, the NT recorded its fifth COVID related death. Three people in the NT have died with coronavirus in the past week. There are real worries about the impacts this is having on our health system right across the Northern Territory.