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

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 18 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 a letter has been received from Senator Lines proposing an urgency motion, as follows:

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:

(a) note:

(i) even before COVID-19, the Morrison Government had pushed the aged care system into crisis and older Australians were suffering,

(ii) the aged-care system has endured a revolving door of ministers - with seven in seven years,

(iii) the Morrison Government has cut funding and removed safeguards in aged care, including:

(A) abolishing the $1.2 billion aged-care workforce supplement for 350,000 front-line aged care workers within 18 days of forming Government in 2013, and

(B) Mr Morrison, as treasurer, cutting $1.7 billion from the aged care budget;

(iv) almost 150 recommendations have been made to the Morrison Government in a dozen inquiries and reviews, to protect older Australians in aged-care, but too many recommendations have been ignored, including:

(A) six years after then-Minister Fifield promised an aged-care workforce strategy, Australia still does not have one, and

(B) three years after the Australian Law Reform Commissioner recommended a Serious Incident Response Scheme to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect in aged care, Australia still does not have one;

(v) the Morrison Government's own statistics reveal that these cuts, confusion and chaos have resulted in:

(A) more than 100,000 Australians are waiting for their approved home care package,

(B) the average waiting time for older Australians going into residential aged care has blown out by more than 100 days, and

(C) Australians needing high-level home care are waiting, on average, 3 years for help;

(vi) Royal Commissioners, the Hon Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs AO, said that, "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; and

(b) call on the Prime Minister and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians to:

(i) recognise that Australia's aged care crisis is seven years in the making,

(ii) apologise to the many mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers that would be alive today if not for these seven years of neglect, and

(iii) demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame, and take responsibility for the crisis in our aged-care system."

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.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) 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:

(a) note:

(i) even before COVID-19, the Morrison Government had pushed the aged care system into crisis and older Australians were suffering,

(ii) the aged-care system has endured a revolving door of ministers - with seven in seven years,

(iii) the Morrison Government has cut funding and removed safeguards in aged care, including:

(A) abolishing the $1.2 billion aged-care workforce supplement for 350,000 front-line aged care workers within 18 days of forming Government in 2013, and

(B) Mr Morrison, as treasurer, cutting $1.7 billion from the aged care budget;

(iv) almost 150 recommendations have been made to the Morrison Government in a dozen inquiries and reviews, to protect older Australians in aged-care, but too many recommendations have been ignored, including:

(A) six years after then-Minister Fifield promised an aged-care workforce strategy, Australia still does not have one, and

(B) three years after the Australian Law Reform Commissioner recommended a Serious Incident Response Scheme to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect in aged care, Australia still does not have one;

(v) the Morrison Government's own statistics reveal that these cuts, confusion and chaos have resulted in:

(A) more than 100,000 Australians are waiting for their approved home care package,

(B) the average waiting time for older Australians going into residential aged care has blown out by more than 100 days, and

(C) Australians needing high-level home care are waiting, on average, 3 years for help;

(vi) Royal Commissioners, the Hon Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs AO, said that, "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; and

(b) call on the Prime Minister and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians to:

(i) recognise that Australia's aged care crisis is seven years in the making,

(ii) apologise to the many mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers that would be alive today if not for these seven years of neglect, and

(iii) demonstrate leadership, stop seeking to deflect blame, and take responsibility for the crisis in our aged-care system.

There's no excuse, no amount of dodging and no amount of buck passing that can help the government avoid their responsibility for the disaster that is occurring in residential aged care. Today, there are more than 1,300 active cases of COVID-19 in aged care and, tragically, 328 aged care residents have died from the disease. That is a death rate of more than 18 per cent of the 1,761 cases so far, and that rate may get worse as active cases progress. These are more than just numbers on a screen. These are some of the most vulnerable Australians, and I would like to pay my personal condolences to those who have lost loved ones during COVID. I also want to thank the workforce that has worked so tirelessly throughout, often without suitable PPE, without the appropriate equipment and with a lack of training. I want to say that my thoughts are with every single person who has lost a loved one during the pandemic, but, as I said, particularly with those families who have loved ones in aged-care facilities.

I'd say to the Australian people: it's been said not just today but previously that the Labor Party are turning this into a political game—because we dare to ask questions, because we dare to speak up, because we want to know what's gone on and what hasn't—but the Labor Party are not turning this into a game. There are questions that need to be asked for these families. These families have questions. They want to know why their loved ones have died. It's up to us to ask those questions, and we will continue to do so.

The Morrison government and the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator Colbeck, I'm sad to say, have failed in their duty to protect our most vulnerable Australians during the pandemic, but they also failed in the lead-up to the pandemic. As if the present failure of those opposite were not bad enough, the crisis in aged care before the COVID-19 outbreak has most certainly contributed. Mr Morrison and Senator Colbeck have serious questions to answer about this growing list of failures. Australians are demanding answers, especially those aged-care residents and their families, as I've said, who have been directly impacted by this tragedy. We've heard shocking evidence about these failures through both the COVID-19 Senate inquiry and the aged-care royal commission.

Instead of preparing residential aged care for a possible COVID-19 outbreak, the Morrison government failed even to develop a COVID-19 plan specifically for the aged-care system. In fact, when they did come up with an alleged plan they just renamed the CDNA's. It speaks volumes about the spin that the government go to and the announcements that they make. They're constantly spinning, making announcements, but they don't really do anything. I suppose that's part of the problem. When your leader has had a bit of experience in the marketing area—he's had to leave some of it for reasons we've never quite got to the bottom of—and it's all spin and no substance then you've got a problem.

The aged-care royal commission confirmed that the government wasn't prepared. They went so far as to say the government had engaged in self-congratulation and hubris. There was a four-day delay in the government acting on the St Basil's outbreak, despite the many warnings it had received about the need to improve communication between the regulator and the department. It was revealed to the COVID-19 Senate inquiry that only one in five aged-care workers had completed the government's training in infection control and personal protective equipment use—one in five; four out of five had not completed it. That was just before the explosion of cases in Victorian aged-care facilities. Earlier this month there were still over 200,000 workers—200,000 workers!—yet to complete the training. The government has spent only half the money allocated to funding a surge workforce to assist aged-care facilities impacted by the pandemic, even though its workforce has been insufficient to deal with the staffing shortfall. I hear you ask yourself: 'Did I hear the senator correctly? Has the government spent only half the money allocated to funding a surge workforce to assist aged-care facilities impacted by the pandemic?' Sadly, the answer is yes, you did hear correctly. And that is completely unacceptable.

These failings shouldn't be happening, and they wouldn't be happening had the Australian government been properly prepared. It's no wonder that the aged-care regulator has had a surge in complaints—a 50 per cent increase—between February and April this year. After all, the government have had the benefit of the independent reviews of the handling of the Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge outbreaks for some time now. It's not good enough that they keep trying to pass the buck to Daniel Andrews and Gladys Berejiklian. The buck-passing was continuing as late as last Wednesday. In a press conference, the Prime Minister said, 'We regulate aged care, but when there is a public health pandemic then they are things that are managed from Victoria.' That is contrary to the Australian health sector emergency response plan for novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which states:

The Australian Government will also be responsible for residential aged care facilities; working with other healthcare providers to set standards to promote the safety and security of people in aged care and other institutional settings; and establishing and maintaining infection control guidelines, healthcare safety and quality standards.

It is pretty ironic that, in passing the buck to Victoria, Mr Morrison contradicted his government's own plan, given he was waving it around back in February when it was released. It would help if Mr Morrison had read the document rather than just use it as a prop. The fact is it is the Morrison government that funds and regulates aged care. It is in charge of the system and the buck stops with it.

The revelations today that Minister Colbeck has been cut out of decisions to activate emergency measures during a COVID-19 outbreak in aged care demonstrates that Mr Morrison has clearly lost confidence in his minister. To be honest, it's no surprise, with the difficulty the minister has in answering basic questions, such as how many COVID-19 deaths there have been in aged care or whether he briefed cabinet on the interim report of the royal commission. Ministerial Training 101 surely should be that you have those notes in front of you. If it wasn't the minister's fault, was it someone in the department that failed to prepare properly for the minister? Truly, it is disheartening. It is so sad for people who have lost family members to feel as though they haven't been taken seriously and that the issue is not being taken seriously.

But it is not just the government's mishandling of aged care during the pandemic that has led to the current crisis. It is a crisis that has been brought about by $1.7 billion in budget cuts which Mr Morrison oversaw as Treasurer, by the abolition of aged-care workforce supplement for 350,000 aged-care workers and by the revolving door for ministers in the aged-care portfolio. There have been seven ministers in seven years. Need I mention— (Time expired)

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

Labor's Senator Sue Lines has chosen this moment to attack the Morrison government over aged-care management. I suppose it's easy for Labor members to sit comfortably in their chairs and throw stones, when they themselves have failed miserably to demonstrate the mettle and leadership skills required to lead us through a crisis of this magnitude. Feigning outrage, stomping feet and gesturing wildly won't solve the tough problems the Morrison government is facing right now. It takes commitment, persistence and strength.

Senator Pratt interjecting—

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

Senator Hughes, resume your seat. It's very disorderly to continue to interject. I remind senators that everyone has the right to be heard in silence.

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

Thank you. Labor's theatre on the floor of this chamber isn't helpful. It's not problem solving. It's just insulting to everyone trying to fight their way through this devastating crisis. After failing to land any blows against the government over its handling of the crisis in aged-care facilities, they now reach into the past to try and make their desperate, unfounded case.

What has happened in Australian nursing homes has happened around the world. We are making sure and steady progress in fighting this insidious virus as we seek to stabilise the situation. Still, we are not so confident that we are ready to declare victory or to rest. Our strategy and our efforts change daily, as they're based on the very best advice of our very dedicated health professionals.

To suggest that the Morrison government doesn't care about our elderly is nonsensical and childish. We too have parents and loved ones in nursing homes around the country. I'm sick of hearing that everyone involved is not doing their utmost to save lives. We've staff who have lost parents who have been farewelled without fanfare because of the tough quarantine restrictions on nursing homes. And they have been back at work 24 hours later. I haven't seen my own elderly mother, who lives in a nursing home, for close to six months. The suggestion that our government leaders don't care is simply irresponsible—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

especially as we engage in this war where Australians are dying, Senator Pratt. Tragically, this is Australia right now and we must be strong. We're getting on with the job of fighting COVID in aged-care homes around the country and we won't give up.

It's in this environment that we address Labor's illogical accusations that we've cut spending on the aged-care sector. Total aged-care spending under Labor was $13.3 billion when they left office, compared to $22.6 billion this year under the coalition, rising to more than $25 billion in 2022-23. Only Labor—or perhaps the Greens as well—could call billions of dollars of investment a cut. Those claims have also been disproven by the ABC's Fact Check. At a time when Australia is faced with unprecedented and heartbreaking challenges, the best that Labor's wet-lettuce brigade can do is to undermine.

Perhaps we should revisit Labor's record during the heady days of Rudd's and Gillard's leadership, when confusion and ineptitude were the order of the day. Let me take you back: Justine Elliot was the lacklustre Minister for Ageing, and Labor promised to improve the transition between hospital and aged care. They failed. It was a time when Labor cynically shunted aged care to the Productivity Commission so it didn't report on Labor's other aged-care failures until well after the election. Labor overpromised and underdelivered on transitional housing, zero-interest loans and nurse numbers. In fact, the commitment to deliver more nurses fell so short that a mere 13 per cent of the promised extra thousand workers ever materialised. Labor failed the aged-care sector. Labor have never provided the funds and support that the Morrison government have provided to elderly Australians.

In contrast to Labor's abysmal record of failing to deliver and hurling insults and manufactured allegations, the Morrison-led government is working vigorously and sensibly to fight COVID-19. Recently, we offered to step in to help Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews fight COVID-19 in aged-care facilities in Victoria. That's because we need to work together, for the sake of all Australians, like grown-ups—grown-ups with metal. In Victoria we've now taken further measures, with another $9 million provided to coordinate a response between the Commonwealth and the Victorian Labor government. We're working to assist a Labor Premier who has been overwhelmed due to COVID-19 deaths in aged-care facilities.

There are other tragedies occurring. Families are cut off from their loved ones. My heart aches for those families desperate to see their loved ones as time runs out. It's simply not the time for childish finger-pointing and cheap political pointscoring, especially given Labor's own obvious failures in this sector. Our commitment has been sincere. How can you suggest that $1.2 billion of extra support for older Australians over the forward estimates is a cut? On other fronts, new home-care packages have increased from around 60,000 under Labor in 2012-13 to 164,000 under the Morrison government in the 2022-23 period. That's an increase of 170 per cent. As at 31 March 2020, 151,000 people had access to a home-care package, compared to 111,000 at the same time last year. That's an increase of 36 per cent in just 12 months. As at 31 March this year, 98½ per cent of senior Australians who were waiting for a package at their assessed level had been offered support by the government.

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. We and our public health officials have provided our best advice; sadly, that advice hasn't always been a success. It's at this time that we should remember the work of our aged-care workers, who've battled on the front lines and ensured that 92 per cent of our aged-care homes remain COVID-free. Of course we're not infallible, but we continue to make the best decisions made on the best advice daily.

Our investment continues—an additional $12½ million has been provided for grief and trauma support services to assist aged-care residents, their families and loved ones who've experienced a COVID-19 outbreak. That increase means the government has provided more than $100 million for these services. There is $9 million for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to continue its vital work in supporting aged-care providers across the country to prepare and respond to COVID-19 outbreaks.

Then there is the funding to help aged-care workers in hotspots. Whether they be aged-care or residential care workers, there is funding to support their needs for self isolation and, where necessary, alternative accommodation. The federal government has responded with additional funding for extra PPE from the National Medical Stockpile, providing Victorian aged-care providers with five million more facemasks and half a million face shields. As part of the strategy, the commission will commence unannounced visits to monitor infection control and protection 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 facemasks 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 is $1 million dollars for digital devices, such as mobile phones and laptops, for at-risk seniors and there has also been the establishment of the Older Persons COVID-19 Support Line.

Our Prime Minister has tasked the royal commission into aged care to examine our response, even as we act. That takes real leadership. Just think about that for a moment and remember that Labor's performance in the aged-care sector was so bad that the then minister, Justine Elliot, deferred the review of the aged-care planning ratio. At the last election, Labor provided no additional funding in their costings for home-care places or any additional funding for aged-care quality or workforce, or for mainstream residential aged care. Labor has remained silent on any commitment to aged-care since the election; it's a demonstration of their hypocrisy. The Morrison government continues to exemplify leadership and cooperation, even as we reach out to Labor in Victoria to help them solve their aged-care crisis.

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

I agree with this motion. This aged-care crisis has been a long time in the making—35 reports over 40 years, and yet we end up here in this crisis!

I have lost track, actually, of the number of committee inquiries on aged care I have chaired, and I don't want to have to continue doing it—reporting on the failures of the system and the need to increase the workforce. Just yesterday, Professor Pollaers again outlined the need for a significant investment, but we have government senators in here defending the government's investment. On Friday there was another in the piecemeal approaches trying to fill this gap and this gap and this gap; this time it was $171 million. What is recommended is $3.5 billion. We don't have the workforce that is necessary to provide the level of care that is necessary—four hours and 18 minutes. We haven't used the surge workforce. We did self-assessment of aged-care facilities, to see if they were pandemic-ready and COVID-ready. And most of them said yes! They clearly were not.

The Australian community has lost confidence in this government's, this Prime Minister's and this minister's ability to handle this crisis. And please don't lecture us about what's going on in other countries and use that as some sort of excuse as to why some level of death is acceptable! No level of death is acceptable! There could and should have been more effort made to stop what we knew was likely to happen if COVID got into an aged-care facility. We knew it would spread, because these are the most vulnerable people.

I'm also deeply concerned that, in this country, we have not been tackling the elephant in the room, which is putting profit before care, given the number of providers that are profit driven. We need to be looking at care, not profit. We found out on Friday from evidence before the COVID committee that 37 of the 60 facilities that the government was prepared to name that have had more than five deaths are for-profit providers. We need to be doing better in this country. We have lost confidence in this government's ability to handle this crisis.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to the debate on this matter of urgency. It is urgent that we respond to the crisis that has gripped some of the most vulnerable members of our community. It's been often said that we struggle with acknowledging death in our community. In visiting some of the amazing aged-care centres on the Central Coast, I have seen that there have been struggles there with cultural practices around the passing of people who are part of the community. We struggle to acknowledge death, especially of the aged, but Australians are facing the shame of incredible and preventable loss of life that has occurred on this government's watch in the midst of a crisis on a scale that we've not seen before. But there were some hints that they should have paid attention to.

COVID-19 has absolutely ravaged many aged-care communities in my state of New South Wales. In Victoria, in particular, the seeds of this disaster—the tragic loss of 328 irreplaceable lives, as of today—were sewn in the seven years of Liberal Party and National Party neglect of the very essential and critical aged-care sector. Real Australians whose families are mourning their loss are affected by this government's inaction. Real Australians are losing their lives. Real Australians are watching their friends pass away before their very eyes. I offer my sincere condolences to each and every family member and friend of those who have lost somebody in the aged-care sector.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Labor pushed this government to instigate a royal commission into the aged-care sector, but what we've seen from this government is that issues in the aged-care sector have been kicked down the road so many times that that's simply how they respond. Participants in the debate before me, including Senator Siewert, have indicated how many inquiries there have been and how many reports have been tabled but ignored. Our aged-care residents have suffered for a very long time, but the scale of their suffering and the scale of challenge that awaits Australians who are willing to open their eyes and see the level of despair, the failures of care and the deaths that are occurring in aged-care settings is something we cannot turn away from anymore. This government must own this matter. The government must respond.

There are, in fact, now 1,300 active cases of COVID-19 in care facilities in Victoria, and what we see from this Prime Minister is again the same pattern: it's anybody's problem, but it's not his. Twenty-three tragic deaths occurred in Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge, and the residents' experiences there should have been a wake-up call to Mr Morrison and his government. The warnings from the reports that emerged and from the countless testimonials of underfunding and poor regulation should have set alarm bells ringing in the cabinet, yet the Morrison government delayed the reports when they could have been crucial in helping the Victorian government tackle their own emerging COVID aged-care crisis.

For seven long years, this Liberal-National government meant cuts, buck-passing and a revolving door of ministers, leaving care of our vulnerable aged-care residents at the bottom of this government's list of priorities. They've been willing to privatise home-care packages and been enabling of the privatisation of home-care packages as a way to cut the backlog of over 100,000 cases, and we see that the aged-care sector is almost completely incapable of serving the twin masters of care and profit.

The only reform that Mr Morrison is proposing is to strip from embattled aged-care minister Richard Colbeck full control over his portfolio and hand responsibility to the already flat-out health department in the middle of a pandemic. That's not leadership. That's changing deck seats on the Titanic. Minister Colbeck cannot answer the most basic of questions about his brief. He can't tell us clearly whether he did or did not brief the cabinet on the interim report of the aged-care commission or, crucially, how many Australians have actually died of the coronavirus in aged care. We did get out of him today in question time, though, that he is speaking to Mr Morrison about this matter daily. If that is the case, Mr Morrison might try to run but he cannot hide from the fact that he has known, on the testimony of Minister Colbeck in here today, on a daily basis what is going on in aged care. What's clear to us is that Minister Colbeck is not across his brief and, with Mr Morrison refusing to acknowledge the failures of his own government, someone needs to stand up and take leadership before this already parlous situation worsens.

The royal commission thus far has confirmed that the Morrison government in fact has no plan for aged care. The royal commission has heard that the Morrison government is still not prepared at this stage to deal with this crisis. Aged-care homes sent hundreds of requests, day after day, to this government, begging them, pleading with them, to provide them with appropriate levels of PPE to protect their workers, asking for that to be sent to them at the front line from the national stockpile. But just like it has failed to respond to aged-care residents, the government has failed to respond to the workforce. The complaints of staff have been ignored, and the consequences are the levels of COVID activity amongst that workforce.

The government also cut out thousands of support staff in aged-care facilities from the retention payment that was gifted to nurses. Minister Colbeck is so unfamiliar with his portfolio that he forgets that, to make these facilities run, they need a range of people. They need cooks, cleaners and other staff that make up 40 per cent of the entire workforce. Instead, the government locked these hardworking and caring staff out of the bonus payments, despite them running the same risk of infection.

The government has no plan for the workforce in aged care. It has spent a mere half of the money allocated for the surge workforce which will be critical for dealing with the outbreaks in nursing homes. I quote the royal commissioner, Hon. Tony Pagone QC, and Lynelle Briggs AO, who said damningly:

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.

Mr Morrison, to this day, continues to claim to the Australian people that he had no forewarning of the impending crisis. On 29 July, that's what he said. But the facts reveal the truth. The truth is that Mr Morrison has been lying to the Australian public. We know what he knew. We know when he knew it. He knew it in plenty of time; he just chose not to act.

Scott Morrison knows what he needs to do. He needs to cut through the bureaucracy right now. He needs to establish clear lines of responsibility for this vital portfolio and ensure that there is an aged-care workforce strategy. For six years we've been waiting for him to deliver that. That's when it was promised—six years ago—and, to this day, it is still not in place. Just like during our summer of bushfires, when the Prime Minister skipped off to Hawaii and said, 'I'm not the man holding the hose,' once again, this time in aged care, he is not the man helping people. 'It's not my responsibility,' he says, trying to convince the Australian people that aged care is not the responsibility of the federal government and that he is not the one who owes an apology to the families of people who have died in aged care because of the failures on his watch.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his understanding, but Senator Di Natale has indicated that he is ready to proceed and the technology has worked. So, pursuant to order, the Senate will move to valedictory statements.