Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today 16 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Keneally:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Senate to:

(1) note:

(a) Aged care is in crisis, and as at 23 August 2020:

(i) 1,745 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in aged care facilities.

(ii) 313 aged care residents have died

(b) Evidence to the Aged Care Royal Commission that Australia has "one of the highest rates in the world of residential aged care deaths as a proportion of deaths from COVID-19".

(c) The Federal Government is in charge of aged care, it regulates aged care, it funds aged care, it has the legislation that determines the quality of aged care older Australians receive, and its own document on the health responses to COVID-19 in February clearly stated that it would be responsible for residential aged care facilities.

(d) The Morrison government has failed to plan to protect older Australians in aged care during the coronavirus pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.

(e) Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Morrison government had been warned of widespread neglect in its aged care system.

(f) The Morrison Government has let down hundreds of thousands of aged care residents and workers.

(2) express its sympathy to the families of all those residents of aged care who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

(3) call on the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, to demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame, take responsibility for the tragedy unfolding in aged care."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Senate to:

(1) note:

(a) Aged care is in crisis, and as at 23 August 2020:

(i) 1,745 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in aged care facilities.

(ii) 313 aged care residents have died

(b) Evidence to the Aged Care Royal Commission that Australia has "one of the highest rates in the world of residential aged care deaths as a proportion of deaths from COVID-19".

(c) The Federal Government is in charge of aged care, it regulates aged care, it funds aged care, it has the legislation that determines the quality of aged care older Australians receive, and its own document on the health responses to COVID-19 in February clearly stated that it would be responsible for residential aged care facilities.

(d) The Morrison government has failed to plan to protect older Australians in aged care during the coronavirus pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.

(e) Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Morrison government had been warned of widespread neglect in its aged care system.

(f) The Morrison Government has let down hundreds of thousands of aged care residents and workers.

(2) express its sympathy to the families of all those residents of aged care who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

(3) call on the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, to demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame, take responsibility for the tragedy unfolding in aged care.

In rising to speak, I wish to place on record my condolences to the families who are grieving. I also want to say that I am thinking of those who struggle today with this horrible disease, and I offer my support and solidarity to their families. The horror of COVID-19 has been made manifest inside Australia's aged-care facilities. Older Australians have died alone, before their time and without loved ones. Staff have faced illness without the safety of protective equipment. Families have lost the chance to say goodbye.

The Prime Minister cannot control a pandemic or a global economic downturn, but he and his government are responsible for the federally funded aged-care sector, and more should have been done. The neglect and negligence we have seen through the COVID-19 period is a continuation of the neglect and negligence that has been brought to the fore through the proceedings of the aged-care royal commission. Older Australians deserve better than this. The government has squandered three terms worth of opportunities to fix the aged-care sector. The problems have been known for some time. There have been countless reports over the last six years, most of which have been ignored. The failure to act on these recommendations has helped exacerbate the current situation. I note, Madam Acting Deputy President Fierravanti-Wells, that you made a damning submission to the aged-care royal commission, stating:

The failure of the Abbott government to act at that critical time—

in 2014—

sowed the seeds of the predicament that the aged care sector is facing today.

You went on to say:

In short, Prime Minister Abbott and those advising him in the Coalition failed in their promise to reform aged care and simply opted for a shift that had no demonstrable positive outcome for the wellbeing of our older Australians.

It's a very clear statement of the problem. Moving the deckchairs didn't help at all. She's not alone in thinking that this is so. The commissioners presiding over the aged-care royal commission said today:

Had the Australian government acted on previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided.

During question time today, the minister for aged care, Senator Colbeck, said that he didn't seek to draw a connection between the failure to act on previous reviews and the problems being experienced now. I think he should explain what he means by that. Is the minister seriously suggesting that there is no link? What does that mean for the observations being made by the commissioners that preside over the aged-care royal commission? Is he rejecting the conclusions of the commissioners—commissioners tasked, by his own account, with sorting through the challenges in the sector.

The failure to act on problems in this sector is not just historical. It has continued into the COVID period. Since Mr Morrison has become Prime Minister, another report has been delivered, a report by Professor Pollaers, the chair of the government's Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce. That has been sitting on the minister's desk for two years. It has 14 recommendations. Only one of those has been implemented and that one only partially. All the government has done is establish a committee. Lethargy, indifference and a failure to learn from the mistakes of the past have characterised the government's approach to the aged-care sector during COVID. It took until last Friday—six months into the pandemic—after hundreds of aged-care residents died—for the government to announce an aged-care advisory group.

This is a clear failure to plan. Counsel assisting the aged-care royal commission said that neither the Commonwealth department of health nor the aged-care regulator developed a COVID-19 plan specifically for the aged-care sector. It's incredible. It is incredible that such a plan would not have been developed, when everybody knew from the very beginnings of the outbreak of this pandemic that older people were the most vulnerable and the most likely to face mortality.

The report from Newmarch House was released today. Issue after issue identified in that report as contributing to the tragic outbreak at Newmarch House was not addressed by the Morrison government in the critical weeks before COVID-19 hit Victorian aged-care homes. For example, the report notes the impact of severely depleted staffing because of COVID-19 infections among staff—and quarantine—and the significant challenge this posed to Newmarch House. Despite this, the PM and the minister for aged care have continued to say that this issue could not have been anticipated in Victoria.

But it could have been anticipated, because we'd seen it once before in New South Wales. The royal commission was told that Dorothy Henderson Lodge lost almost its entire workforce within the first 48 hours. Within a week of the outbreak at Newmarch House, it had lost 87 per cent of its existing workforce. The report on Newmarch House calls for an expansion of surge capacities. But just last week it was revealed that even now the Morrison government has only spent half the funding it committed to addressing that problem. The report also notes that infection prevention and control was a significant concern, but in the critical weeks before the Victorian outbreak the Morrison government did no audit of nursing home stock of PPE, despite more than 1,300 providers requesting access to the National Medical Stockpile.

Of course, these failures have had a cost. The minister for aged care may not have remembered the number of people who have died in aged-care facilities from COVID-19. But the families and loved ones of those 313 older Australians will. Older Australians have borne the majority of the health consequences of this virus. Australia is recording one of the highest rates in the world of residential aged-care deaths as a proportion of deaths from the coronavirus. Almost 2,000 cases have been recorded in facilities. Staff have been left to work in understaffed and under-resourced Melbourne aged-care facilities. One doctor said:

Tonight, I worked with three nurses who were all in tears at one stage or another … At times, we're significantly distressed and exasperated at the circumstances in which we've found ourselves, where we are unable to provide the optimal care that we sought for a multitude of reasons.

The Prime Minister's failure to take responsibility, to acknowledge the role of his government in resolving this problem and to provide the answers the public deserves has simply compounded the hurt.

As one grieving son told The Guardian newspaper:

I'm not grieving because an 84-year-old woman died, necessarily. It's painful, we miss our mum, but we have been in pain for years … For us, it was painful because there are no answers.

The Prime Minister needs to provide answers to these families. But, more importantly, he needs to take urgent steps to ensure that unnecessary deaths, unnecessary illness and unnecessary anxiety and stress for families of people with loved ones in aged care do not occur again. Australians who have tragically been let down by Mr Morrison and his minister for aged care deserve no less. The public needs to know that Mr Morrison has learnt from previous outbreaks and everything possible is now being done. Former US Vice-President, Hubert Humphrey. once said:

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick …

Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the matter of urgency regarding aged care raised by Senator Keneally. I noted with sadness Senator Colbeck's advice earlier today that there have been 335 COVID-19 related deaths in aged care. I offer my sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of these 335 people who have lost their lives. Just 12 months ago my mother was in an aged-care facility in Launceston. I was fortunate to be able to visit her frequently in her final months. While I understand how hard it is to have a loved one in care, I cannot fathom how difficult it must be for those who cannot see their mothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, their grandmothers, their aunts or their uncles because of the COVID-19 restrictions. That is a heartbreaking scenario. I also want to extend my sympathies to the Australians who are living with COVID-19, or who are currently in isolation due to the impact of COVID-19 on their communities. It is a difficult time.

As we heard earlier today, the total number of active COVID-19 cases in the aged-care sector nationally stands at 1,761 residents, including residential and in-home care. There are currently 126 aged-care services with active cases. This government is determined to ensure that a safe environment exists in aged-care facilities. As we all work together to contain the spread of COVID-19, there is no doubt that we are facing an extraordinary health challenge in containing this virus. We must work together to protect our most vulnerable people against it.

The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Richard Colbeck, have made supporting aged-care facilities to contain coronavirus their prime focus. The safety and wellbeing of aged-care residents is our No. 1 focus. Where there have been large clusters of community transmission it has been very hard to keep COVID-19 out of aged-care services. This, sadly, is what has happened in Victoria. Once the virus got into these facilities the results were devastating, despite the efforts of staff in those facilities to adhere to the required infection controls and screening programs.

We are working hard to contain this virus. All Victorian aged-care facilities with active COVID-19 cases are receiving support from both the Australian Department of Health and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to ensure residents continue to receive essential care. This support includes a single case manager for each facility, access to PPE, testing in the facilities themselves and access to additional staff as needed. In addition, as we heard from the Minister for Defence during question time today, AUSMAT has been deployed to Victoria to assist with managing the COVID-19 response and ADF personnel are on site in some residential facilities, with additional clinical reserve staff available should they be needed. The ADF supported our health staff when there was a coronavirus outbreak in Tasmania's north-west earlier this year, for which we as a state are so grateful.

Health staff from Tasmania have put up their hands to help Victoria in this time of need, as have staff from Western Australia, the ACT and Queensland. Contact-tracing staff have been brought in from New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland to assist.

Our government has scaled up aged-care support programs in Victoria and across Australia, recently committing an extra $171 million to boost the COVID-19 response plan in aged care. This brings the total of Commonwealth funding for the aged-care sector to more than $1 billion since this pandemic began. Infection control training programs, surge workforce staff and additional compliance by the aged-care commissioner and coordinated response centres will all benefit from this extra funding. The funding will provide $81 million for an additional surge workforce and increased training for aged-care workers; $8.4 million for supplementary payments to include quarantine costs and interstate staff; $50 million to account for additional demand for retention bonus measures; $9.1 million for the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre—established with the Victorian government to boost their additional workforce while undergoing more training—to ensure a workforce that can quickly respond to outbreaks in other states; $12.5 million to support aged-care residents and their families who have experienced a COVID-19 outbreak with grief and trauma support services; and more Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission compliance and quality checks on aged-care providers, specifically checking on preparations and responses to COVID-19 outbreaks. Other funding measures include $205 million to help residential aged-care providers meet costs associated with COVID-19 and almost $48 million to extend the Business Improvement Fund for another year to help residential aged-care providers in financial difficulty. Regional, rural and remote areas and those affected by bushfires have been prioritised for fund applications.

We're also putting more funding into helping older Australians stay at home, including $59 million for meal delivery services like Meals on Wheels and $10 million for the Community Visitors Scheme to ensure those in aged care are not socially isolated due to visiting restrictions. Indigenous elders living in urban areas are also being supported with transport to medical appointments, welfare checks, meals and other measures to lessen the impact of isolation.

Senator Keneally claims the Morrison government failed to plan to protect older Australians in aged care, but I would argue that this government has been preparing and planning its response to COVID-19 in residential aged care since January this year. We have been working with the aged-care sector and state and territory governments to build a strong but flexible response to this virus, incorporating lessons from our own successes and those of other countries as we go.

Specific guidelines for COVID-19 were issued by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia to the aged-care sector on 13 March and have been updated twice since. These guidelines and response plan include infection control guidance designed specifically for residential aged care; COVID-19 training for the aged-care workforce; visitation restrictions that keep residents safe but are also mindful of the need for those residents to remain safely connected to their families and communities; rapid provision of PPE, clinical expertise and an additional skilled workforce to support care and contain transmission in the event of an outbreak; and COVID-19 pathology testing and access to telehealth to ensure residents continue to safely receive needed health care.

This government is delivering record investment across the aged-care system, with an estimated $25.4 billion forecast for 2022-23. By comparison, Labor's investment in aged care in 2012-13 was $13.3 billion. On average, that is an extra $1.2 billion in support for older Australians over the forward estimates each year. Making improvements to aged care for all senior Australians continues to be one of this government's key priorities. That is why the Prime Minister called a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. We're committed to providing senior Australians with support to live in their own homes for longer. New home-care packages have increased from just over 60,000 under Labor in 2012-13 to more than 164,000 in 2022-23. This is an increase of more than 170 per cent. Over that same period, funding will have increased by 258 per cent due to growth in high-level packages.

The viability supplement to support services in rural and remote Australia has been increased by 30 per cent, as has the homeless supplement. This government has also established a new independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, implemented new consumer focused Aged Care Quality Standards and the Aged Care Diversity Framework, introduced a new mandatory national quality indicator program and put in place a new single Charter of Aged Care Rights.

But it is not just about investing in a COVID-19 response, more aged-care places and improving the framework around compliance within the aged-care sector. This government has invested $185 million to support the Medical Research Future Fund, with a focused mission on ageing, aged care and dementia. This fund will support older Australians to maintain their health and quality of life as they age so that they can live independently for longer and access quality care when they need it.

Reduction in risk, prevention and tracking of dementia will benefit from $21 million of investment in 13 research projects. Dementia is Australia's second-leading cause of death and something we are taking seriously. To this end we have established the Specialist Dementia Care Program and provided more funding to support dementia behaviour management through advisory services and training for care workers.

More funding has also been provided for aged-care services for First Nations people, including grants for aged-care providers delivering services to Indigenous people to help purchase equipment and undertake minor works, and $60 million has been allocated for capital grants for infrastructure works in rural and remote areas. This government takes aged care seriously and it will always protect older Australians.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express the Greens support for this urgency motion that calls on the government 'to demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame and take responsibility for the tragedy unfolding in aged care'. We strongly support this motion. It is clear to us that the government does not have a coordinated, well-resourced national plan in place to protect older Australians from future COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care. Before I go any further I would also like to extend my condolences, sympathy and support for all of those Australians who have lost loved family members in aged care.

We've just heard a list of the things that the government says it has done in aged care, but clearly it is not enough because we have lost 335 older Australians in residential care and home care during this latest outbreak of COVID-19 in Victoria. It is clearly not enough. This government has failed to take accountability and, in doing so, failed older Australians and their families. It has apparently come as a surprise to the Prime Minister and the minister that aged care is in fact a responsibility of the Commonwealth government. The Commonwealth government is the primary funder and regulator of the aged-care system. The Department of Health is responsible for the operation of the Aged Care Act and the associated aged-care principles.

Today I would like to focus on how we could have avoided the scale and heartbreak of the COVID-19 outbreaks in residential aged care and what we need to be doing to make sure it doesn't happen elsewhere. Today the minister said that the government is looking at the learnings from the Newmarch House outbreak, but the changes being made—for example, relating to early identification of cases, facility management and surge workforce—are all reactive. While those are very important, of course, the government is not taking seriously enough the prevention of outbreaks in aged-care facilities on a national level. They must start putting in place preventative measures now. They can't wait until after the royal commission has reported, because this is happening now.

Last week, at the Senate inquiry into COVID-19, the minister tried to pin problems in Victoria on the depletion of the workforce and on not appreciating that a whole workforce would have to be moved. I strongly believe that that was flawed thinking, given the circumstances we are seeing. But I also believe that if we had had the adequate number of staff and proper staff ratios and if we had had good clinical care measures in place in aged care we would not have seen issues on the scale that we now do. For years and years workers in aged care, some of the providers, and friends, families and loved ones of people in residential aged care have been raising the issue of workforce. For years we have known that we needed to significantly increase the numbers of workers, both nurses and care workers, in aged care. We've known for a long time that we needed to significantly improve the training and support for the workforce.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today, amidst the greatest public health crisis in several generations, to speak to the matter of urgency. As of yesterday, 335 Australian families had lost a loved one to COVID-19 in aged care in Australia. So many Australians have been failed by a Commonwealth government that failed to prepare and that failed to learn the lessons from overseas and from outbreaks like those at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House. Those nursing homes, both in my home state of New South Wales, needed special planning and care as the virus bore down on us.

While most of these victims of COVID-19 could not be with their loved ones, they did have tireless and selfless people by their side. I am talking of the 165,000 health workers in aged care who do the overwhelming majority of the work in our aged-care homes and services. They are kind and patient people who feed our loved ones, keep them hydrated, turn them, bathe them and lift them so that they are comfortable and safe. They share their stories and quell their fears, and they take them outside for a precious hour of sunshine. I cannot say enough to applaud the hard work that they endeavour to do.

The measure of how we value aged care in this country has no more important indicator than how we value the health workers, who are the care. Like truck drivers, cleaners, and food delivery, postal and supermarket workers, healthcare workers in aged care are the front line of this pandemic. They are the quiet heroes. We dishonour them, and we dishonour the older Australians they care for every day, when we pay them so little, when we deny them paid pandemic leave and when we condemn them to such insecure and unfunded work. They deserve better than this, and we can do better than this. The COVID-19 pandemic pulled back the curtain on the lack of funding and on job insecurity in aged care that were already there. Years before COVID-19, unions had been warning about the staff cuts and the underfunding of aged care. We should not be surprised that the pandemic took advantage of the systemic running down of staff levels and training. If Scott Morrison and his hapless aged-care minister care to actually address the crisis in aged care, I invite them to listen to the aged-care workers themselves.

Aged care is complex and the long-term decline in funding and the lack of transparency and accountability in how $13 billion of taxpayers' money is spent will not be solved overnight. But there are some important steps that workers in aged care know the government could and should take right now to address this crisis in aged care. Every worker needs paid pandemic leave. Every worker needs proper personal protective equipment and training in how to use it. And we need a trained and ready surge workforce. Every worker in the health and aged-care sectors needs access to paid pandemic leave—because the virus does not care what kind of job you do or where you do it—regardless of where they work and what state they are in.

The ACTU and unions like the Health Services Union, which covers healthcare workers, have been calling for universal paid pandemic leave. Many have trumpeted the Fair Work Commission's recent decision to adjust the award, granting paid pandemic leave for aged-care workers. This is welcome news, but the problem is that only one in 10 workers in aged care are covered by that award. That means 90 per cent of aged-care workers who are covered by enterprise agreements may not be getting paid pandemic leave at all. Unless you are an aged-care worker in Victoria, you are facing the prospect of losing your income or losing your job if you have to self-isolate.

The Health Services Union wrote to aged-care providers around the country to ask them do the right thing and offer paid pandemic leave to their staff. Here are the results. Some employers have agreed to pass on the full two weeks, like Twilight Aged Care to its 240 staff. Some employers, like UnitingCare, are paying only a few days, and the vast majority are determined to do nothing. Why won't the not-for-profit aged-care chains, like Whiddon and Mercy Health, offer paid pandemic lead to their staff? Why are for-profit aged-care operators, like Regis, effectively telling their staff that they must choose between safety, and paying their bills and feeding their kids? Apparently the cost of pandemic leave is too much even when stacked up against its real cost in stress, loss of livelihoods and loss of life. And this government, which, despite Scott Morrison trying to pass the buck, has responsibility for aged care, has done nothing to extend aged-care pandemic leave to cover these most vulnerable workers, these essential workers in aged care.

The second thing the government must do is mandate proper levels of personal protective equipment and training. This chamber may be shocked to hear that there is still no nationally mandated PPE used in aged care. How can we expect staff to manage complex infection control of patients and visitors when staff have little or no training and often have highly limited access to PPE? Members have spoken to the Health Services Union when questioned about what employers were doing about PPE supplies. One care manager said they planned to make calico masks for staff. Another worker told the union that, as of last week, she was given only one mask per eight-hour shift, in clear breach of infection control protocols. And where is the federal government? We know that, prior to the outbreaks in Victoria, just one in five aged-care workers had completed the government's training modules on how to use PPE, and this was weeks after the earlier outbreaks at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House.

If they don't listen to our aged-care providers, the Prime Minister and aged-care minister could look at the revelations in the final report on the Newmarch House tragedy. Just last week we learned that, as of now, the Morrison government has spent only half the funding committed to addressing the critical surge staffing problem, and now we have a growing crisis of worker fatigue and stress across the sector. As Health Services Union National President Gerard Hayes said:

The chronic underfunding of aged care has created the perfect storm for the devastating effects of COVID-19 that we now see in Victoria and have witnessed at Newmarch House in NSW.

The bottom line is that, even with a strategy to create a surge workforce, it will not solve the underlying problem, which is that 20 per cent of workers in aged care have at least two places of work because of their extremely low pay and zero-hour contracts in the sector. Honouring our older Australians means committing to providing decently paid and secure work for the people who are relied on the most.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of urgency regarding aged care raised by Senator Keneally. The vulnerability of elderly Australians to COVID-19 is an emotional and tragic issue not lost on this government. Members from all sides of politics have shared stories with each other about the tragedy of COVID-19 deaths in Australian nursing homes. The extreme vulnerability of our elderly and infirm to this insidious virus has been evident both here in Australia and in other countries around the world where COVID-19 battles are raging. No-one has yet executed the perfect solution. Ideally, we wouldn't lose a single life. Sadly, that's not been the case. We've witnessed multiple deaths at state-run nursing homes in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, with one death recorded in Tasmania. Whilst it angers me that Labor continue to politicise this horrendous situation, it does not surprise—even when their own party has worked, and sometimes failed, to eliminate the tragedies of multiple deaths in aged-care facilities in their states. These tragedies include the pain of families cut off from their loved ones. I haven't seen my own mother for close to six months, and, while she really hasn't recognised me for the past few years, it was a treat to have her remember me recently during a FaceTime call arranged by her residential home. In fact, I've barely seen my father for six months either, as the village where he lives—independently, but close to my mother—has been shut off to outside visitors. But it's for my father that I ache, at the thought that, although married to my mother for more than half a century, he is forbidden to walk down the corridor and hold her hand to ease her confusion. My heart aches for other families, desperate to see their loved ones as time runs out.

Now's not the time for finger-pointing and cheap political point-scoring. Now's the time for action and improvement. That's why, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we've provided $1 billion to support seniors in aged care. Of that money, a quarter of a billion dollars has been provided to residential aged-care providers for costs associated with COVID-19, and another half a billion dollars has been provided to assist with important measures, including $234 million provided for direct care. That money is for staff retention, both in residential care and for those working to provide home-based aged care. $78 million has been provided to ensure the continuity of the aged-care workforce through a temporary increase to the residential care subsidy. We have injected $26.9 million to boost the residential care and home care viability supplement and the residential care homeless supplement. We have provided $92 million to support home care and CHSP providers, and $12.3 million has been given to boost the My Aged Care service. And we haven't forgotten the workers, with unlimited assistance for those workers at COVID-19 affected facilities, that includes extra staff that have been brought on. We've provided $101 million solely for preparedness measures to aged-care providers to manage and prevent outbreaks, through infection control training for their workforce including the extra workers that have been brought on to help throughout the pandemic. The federal government has been writing the states many cheques. It's the one thing we can do, and we haven't shirked our responsibility on that front.

Additionally, we've provided close to $60 million for meal delivery services like Meals on Wheels to support senior Australians in need of food or groceries. We've provided an additional $10 million for the Community Visitors Scheme to ensure, where regulations permit, that some Australians in aged care are not isolated due to visiting restrictions like border closures. We've even provided $9 million to support Indigenous elders living in urban areas to deal with the impact of isolation, and for transport to medical appointments. That money may also be utilised for welfare checks, and even food, where necessary. In Victoria, where local health officials have struggled to manage the death rate, we've now taken further measures with another $9 million provided to support a coordinated response between the Commonwealth and the Victorian government.

We've extended the aged-care COVID-19 preparedness measure, with $81 million provided for additional aged-care workers and increased training. There's $8.4 million for supplementary payments to include quarantine costs and interstate staff, and $1.5 million has been provided to ensure appropriate and regular communications from Healthdirect to the families and loved ones of aged-care residents impacted by COVID-19.

Public health officials have provided their best advice, as have we. Sadly, that advice hasn't always been a success. But, of course, with 92 per cent of aged-care facilities COVID-free, we keep working. Right now in the aged-care area we're comparing favourably with other countries. But we're not infallible. We made the best decisions, made on the best advice daily. An additional $12½ million has been provided for grief and trauma support services to assist aged-care residents and their families who've experienced a COVID-19 outbreak. That increase means that the government has provided more than $100 million for these services, yet we're not just reacting; we are planning for the future.

There's $9 million for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to continue its vital work supporting aged-care providers across the country to prepare for and respond to COVID-19 outbreaks. Then there's the funding to help aged-care workers in hot spots. Whether they be aged-care or residential care workers, this funding supports their needs for self-isolation and, where necessary, alternative accommodation. The federal government has responded with additional funding for additional PPE from the National Medical Stockpile, providing Victorian aged-care providers with five million more face masks and half a million face shields. As part of this strategy the commission will commence unannounced visits to monitor infection control and infection equipment protocols.

Our government has made some very tough decisions—decisions that have impacted so many. We've instituted strong and often painful restrictions on visitation at aged-care homes. We've provided emergency leave for aged-care residents whose loving families want to look after them. We've temporarily removed restrictions on international students working in aged care. And we've provided additional flexibility to home-care providers for personal monitoring services. These measures all complement the $1.1 billion we've spent on face masks and other protective measures Australia-wide. We're tackling isolation and loneliness in older Australians, with close to $5 million for FriendLine, a national telephone support for older Australians, to expand the phone support services until 2024. There's $1 million for digital devices, such as mobile phones and laptops, for at-risk seniors. There's also been the establishment of an Older Persons COVID-19 Support Line.

And don't forget that there's other funding that impacts aged care, with $100 million for a new COVID-19 telehealth consultation Medicare item. There's $25 million for home medicine services, $5 million to fast-track the rollout of electronic prescribing across Australia and $50.7 million for the expansion of a national triage phone line.

But are we infallible? No. Our Prime Minister has said so today. He tasked the royal commission into aged care to examine our response even as we act. Senator Keneally can thump the table and try to insist that we have no plan. I've just outlined our plan—and it's been outlined before. She's insulted healthcare workers and suggested that they failed in their infection control measures. In fact, most of them have succeeded, with 92 per cent of aged-care homes COVID-free. Her theatre to try to evoke emotions of a lonely death in aged-care facilities is nothing short of embarrassing—let alone insulting to the hardworking staff. Many of our own staff, our health workers and health bureaucrats have suffered these very real situations.

And whilst it's encouraging to think that Senator Keneally has been moved by stories that she's heard in the media, the government's far from being unaware or uncaring or even directly involved in this. We are working closely with our state counterparts to save lives. We're making decisions based on the best health advice that we can rely on. Perhaps the Labor Party should rethink the politicisation of this challenging issue. Their criticisms are unhelpful and capture their own state party members.

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this motion. The Morrison government has repeated the line that, once a virus gets into the community, the consequences for aged-care homes are inevitable. What an excuse! 'Inevitable'—as though there was no way the dire consequences and deaths in aged care could have been avoided or mitigated. I don't accept that, Australians don't accept that and the government certainly shouldn't accept that.

It's one thing for the government to blame community transmission for the shocking death toll in aged-care facilities, but it's another not to have properly planned for outbreaks. We saw what happened overseas. We saw what unfolded at the Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House outbreaks in April. But did the government learn from those lessons, especially to expect the sudden departure of regular carers and nurses and to provide PPE training? Of course not. Seven months into the pandemic, the federal government's learnings have been slow and deeply disappointing. I give my deepest condolences to the families of the 328 loved ones who have lost their lives in residential aged care because of COVID-19 and the seven people who contracted COVID-19 and passed away while receiving in-home care.

The weaknesses in our aged-care system have not been caused by the virus; they have been exposed in glaring focus. The minute we knew the virus was spreading, the federal government should have snapped to attention. The system was already broken. We don't need the royal commission to tell us that the current system, largely motivated by profit, is not fit for purpose, unless that purpose is to make money off our most vulnerable. Going forward, I hope the government realises that aged care can no longer be business as usual. Enough with the excuses. Government must act responsibly now.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter of urgency concerns 335 aged-care residents and 335 people—mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents and friends. This is the number of aged-care residents who have passed away due to coronavirus, and I want to pass on my condolences to their families at this time. I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it has been for families who haven't been able to visit and sit with their loved ones before they died. We hear stories of spouses unable to hold their partner's hand one last time and parents and grandparents unable to see their children and grandchildren in their final moments. It is an absolute tragedy. We are facing an aged-care disaster, and we need real leadership—new leadership—from the Morrison government to face this disaster.

As the matter of urgency motion states, evidence presented to the aged-care royal commission shows that Australia has one of the highest rates in the world of residential aged-care deaths as a proportion of deaths from COVID-19. This is a national crisis and a national shame. So where is the plan to deal with it? We knew this virus was highly infectious. We knew it was deadly, particularly for older people. We saw it happen in other countries first. But, despite this highly infectious disease appearing, no plan was put in place for aged care by this government. There was no plan for infection control, no plan for personal protective equipment—no plan.

The alarm bells really rang back in April when the first aged-care outbreaks occurred, but the lessons just weren't learnt, and so history has repeated itself, with the disease tragically spreading through aged-care homes in Victoria. The Newmarch House report confirms that this is the case—that, despite issues been clearly identified as contributing to those early outbreaks, nothing was done to fix them. There were issues with staffing levels due to quarantine requirements, issues with infection prevention and control, issues with serious shortages of PPE, issues with communication and confusion. But what did the government do to address these issues? What did the government do to address issues that they knew presented huge risks to aged-care centres and to their residents? They spent only half of the funds they committed to addressing surge capacity for staffing. Only one out of five aged-care workers had completed the Morrison government's training on how to correctly use PPE. They did no audit of PPE stock, despite 1,300 aged-care providers requesting access to the national stockpile. Why did the government not address these issues?

The aged-care workforce has been absolutely heroic during this time. They are dedicated, and I know that they are also devastated at the loss of life in aged care. They work hard every day, caring for some of our most vulnerable Australians, but they are underequipped, they are understaffed and they are exhausted. So many are in low-paid and insecure jobs. They deserve better, and so do the older Australians and families who are relying on them.

The aged-care system is broken and it has been for years. Inquiry after inquiry, report after report, review after review all point to an aged-care sector that has been struggling to deliver for the older Australians who rely on it. So who is responsible for this? Is it the Liberal-National coalition that has been in government for seven years? Apparently not, according to the Prime Minister. Is it Senator Colbeck, the minister for aged care? Apparently not. One of these numerous reports, A matter of care, specifically recommended sweeping action to ensure aged-care workers had access to appropriate training. Today, the commissioners presiding over the aged-care royal commission said:

Had the Australian Government acted upon previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided.

The suffering could have been avoided, but the Prime Minister and the minister for aged care haven't listened. They sat on that report for two years, just like they sat on the lessons that could have been learned earlier in the COVID crisis. This is a gross abdication of responsibility. It is a gross demonstration of incompetence, and it is causing families pain, heartache and loss.

Minister Colbeck, when answering questions on aged care in front of the COVID-19 inquiry, couldn't even answer how many Australians in aged care had died of COVID-19 and how many active cases there were. He couldn't tell the inquiry if he had briefed either the national cabinet or the federal cabinet. There is a crisis in Australian aged care, and cabinet may or may not have been briefed on it. Despite this, the Prime Minister and Minister Cormann have leapt to Minister Colbeck's defence. This is the same Prime Minister who has tried to say that his government is simultaneously somehow not responsible for aged care in Australia but also prepared and has a plan in place. Which is it? Because Australians need to see this government step up and prevent more deaths from COVID-19 in our aged-care system.

Enough is enough. It's time to stop shifting the blame. It's time to stop avoiding responsibility. We need solutions, not excuses. Scott Morrison's government is responsible for aged care. It is responsible for making sure there's a plan to keep Australians safe in this COVID-19 crisis, and it's time that they discharged that responsibility.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to a matter of urgency moved by Senator Keneally, which concerns and incorporates some, in my view, unfair criticisms of the coalition government in relation to its response to the COVID-19 impact on the aged-care sector. In particular, the motion calls on the Prime Minister and the minister, Senator Colbeck, to demonstrate leadership and take responsibility. My response to that call is that it has been answered and it is being answered and it will continue to be answered.

Whilst I oppose the motion, and I strongly oppose it, I do join Senator Keneally in extending my sympathies to the families who have lost loved ones because of the virus. I know I can be confident that every honourable senator in this place feels the same sentiment.

The mover of this motion appears to have crafted their propositions based on articles that have appeared in The Guardian or media of similar disposition. The mover of the motion has failed to properly reflect on the incredible and Herculean efforts that have been undertaken by the coalition government to keep our aged safe. Aristotle said, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.' The federal government, the coalition government, is a government of action in an environment that is difficult, challenging, and ever-changing. While the motion is critical of the Prime Minister and Minister Colbeck, I praise them both. The Prime Minister has said this has been his No. 1 focus. This does not sound like a leader seeking to deflect blame or refusing to take responsibility. Rather, it is the opposite. The minister, Senator Colbeck, has worked extremely hard and his endeavours have been extremely effective. It is difficult to think at this time of having a more capable or effective minister to face these challenges. To unfairly lay criticism on the minister is to ignore that the states also have a critical role to play in the movement of people in their jurisdictions, for they govern the public health laws that apply to these facilities. We must bear in mind the providers that have been supported by the federal government who also have a critical role to play. This is why the coalition government has chosen to work collaboratively and closely with the states and the providers and not seek, as Labor are doing today, to lay blame and sow discourse and disharmony.

The Morrison government is scaling up its aged-care support programs in Victoria and across Australia with an additional $171.5 million to boost a new COVID-19 response plan, which has been agreed by all states and territories. This brings the total Commonwealth funding to support this sector to more than $1 billion. This $1 billion dollars is being used to support the sector, including directly and indirectly supporting providers and the sector overall, and, importantly, to support residents and staff. For example, the federal and Victorian governments have established a dedicated Victorian Aged Care Response Centre in Melbourne to coordinate support to each aged-care provider experiencing an outbreak.

The federal government did understand the implications the spread of COVID-19 could have for the aged-care workforce. This is why it set out a plan, in the early days, to reinforce and repair the sector with tangible actions. This included providing critical information to providers and initially committing $101.2 million to help build capacity through a workforce surge program. The Morrison government is committed to providing an unlimited amount of surge workforce facilities during this outbreak. That is an incredible commitment by the minister and the Prime Minister. It is worth noting that the government is also delivering record investment in the aged-care system over the forward estimates. From $13.3 billion in 2012-13, under Labor, it grows to $21.4 billion in 2019-20 to an estimated $25.4 billion in 2022-23. This is, on average, $1.2 billion of extra support for older Australians each year over the forward estimates.

I would also point out to honourable senators that it is the Prime Minister, a Liberal Prime Minister, that called a royal commission into aged care quality and safety. This is not the act of a government that is avoiding accountability or responsibility. Rather, this is a government that has no fear of accountability, that seeks out responsibility and that is driven to protecting the most vulnerable.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Keneally's motion. One might think that the lessons of the first wave of COVID-19 might have been learned to avoid the tragedies we have seen in aged care in Victoria, but they weren't. Unfortunately, that's not surprising. It's not surprising because governments have not paid enough attention to aged-care events playing out every day in aged care, even prior to COVID-19. The system has been limping along for some time, with band-aids being applied, sometimes one on top of the other.

The government needs to take charge of aged care, and they need to be doing so for the purposes of COVID-19—which is not going away; we can't be sure that it's going away anytime soon—but also for the long term. Being a person who likes to put forward propositions, I say that one of the first things that needs to happen in the short term is we need to have focus on this issue. That means a single minister for aged care, not one sharing other portfolios. The Morrison government should move to have a minister for aged care working solely on that particular portfolio.

We also need to have a COVID plan for residential aged care so everyone has a consistent understanding of the response and how to respond. In the longer term, we need to address the whole issue of aged care, of course informed by things like the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Nothing I say here is a criticism of any of the workers involved; they have done their best under the circumstances. Finally, I would also like to extend my condolences to those who have passed.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that there are many grieving families, fearful families and concerned families. I raise the fact that, in my correspondence both to the Prime Minister and to the Premier of Queensland, I expressed concern over their use of insufficient and flawed modelling to lock us all away and cause untold damage to our economy and businesses and jobs. Their responses to my letters avoided addressing the real issues.

If, as I suggested in March, the federal government and state governments had learned from nations like Taiwan and promptly adopted rigorous testing combined with strict isolation of their sick, aged and vulnerable, then many Australians could have stayed at work, with minimal economic disruption and better health. The difference is that Taiwan had a plan and relied on solid data, and, as a result, Taiwan have had seven deaths in the time we've had 517. They have a similar population to ours in terms of total population, yet they're under greater threat because of their highly densely populated country and because they're closer to China.

Recently, in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Hon. John Hewson said:

Planning – or the lack of it – has been the great failure of … the Morrison government … It has been building over years of neglect and poor policy, but now it is being laid bare by both COVID-19 and the Royal Commission …

Queensland's own Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeannette Young, has stated this past week that she is only looking at the health issues, and this is very concerning. Who is looking after the big picture for us all? What about mental health, economic health, jobs, families and businesses? The Queensland Premier referred us to the location of a website for her data. We checked. There's no relevant data—a weak Premier, irresponsibly abdicating her duties, hiding behind the Queensland Chief Health Officer. The Morrison and the Queensland governments both need to step up and demonstrate leadership and tell the truth, and they need to show us the data and the plan across all aspects of managing a way out of this pandemic and the resulting recession and, in the process, ensure security for all Australians.

Question agreed to.