Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians (Senator Colbeck)to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to COVID-19 in aged care.

I've got a mum who's 90 years old. She had a birthday on 8 August. Thankfully, she's in relatively good health, considering her age, and she lives independently, because I'm telling you I would move hell and high water if she had to go into an aged-care facility. I would not be having that, because I do not have any confidence in what the government do in aged care. And it's not just in relation to COVID-19, as bad as that has been, as embarrassing as that has been, and as much as that has shown what a lazy government we have and that they don't actually have any respect for our elders. They don't care. They don't care about what happens to older Australians. Aged care isn't even in cabinet. Cabinet hasn't even been briefed. As far as I'm concerned, that tells us a whole lot about what this government thinks and how they treat elderly Australians.

I don't trust that this minister has the competence to manage the COVID-19 outbreak, let alone the competence to run the system more generally. This is a minister who can't answer basic questions about COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care. He couldn't tell the COVID-19 Senate committee how many people had died in aged care, and he stumbled over this figure when responding to me in question time on Monday. He couldn't say whether he had briefed the federal cabinet on the interim report of the aged-care royal commission. Yesterday he scurried from the Senate while Labor senators responded to his weak defence of the government's record on aged care. Today, he couldn't tell us how much of the $205 million committed in May for staffing, training and PPE was actually spent on those items. He couldn't tell us what conditions were imposed on the spending of that money.

This is not a minister that is on top of his game. This is the most critical issue for Australia in the last 100 years. It's not like it's just a little one-off episode where someone caught a disease. This is affecting the whole of the nation of Australia. It has put people out of work. It has stopped children going to school. It has put cities and regions into lockdown. He is the minister responsible for aged care and he can't answer these basic questions. I will tell you what we can do. Earlier today, Mr Albanese gave a speech at the National Press Club.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a very good speech.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a very good speech, Senator Farrell; I agree. As this government has absolutely no idea how to deal with any of the issues in aged care, the Labor Party will once again make some suggestions for them on what they can do. When Mr Albanese spoke in the National Press Club, he pointed out that in the absence of a government plan there are eight points the government could consider. This is once again Labor having to do the work of the government because they are so inept and incompetent that they can't actually work out what they need to do. What did Mr Albanese suggest?

He suggested pretty basic stuff: minimum staffing levels in residential aged care; reducing the home-care package waiting list so more people can stay in their homes—that reminds me about a survey which showed that Australians have lost confidence in the system under this government. A survey by Fifth Dimension found that 54 per cent of people with family members in aged care are thinking of moving their loved ones into their own homes. This survey was conducted between 31 July and 3 August, after the deadly outbreak of coronavirus in nursing homes in Sydney and Melbourne. Of these, one-third are considering doing that permanently. That might actually solve a bit of the problem for the aged-care facilities, but it opens up a whole new problem for the government because I think they've got over 130,000 people on the waiting list for home-care packages. If these people have moved out, then a hell of a lot more people will be waiting for home-care packages.

The third point that Mr Albanese talked about was ensuring transparency and accountability of funding to support high-quality care. I've got to say— (Time expired)

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address this question, because it is important and, as Senator Bilyk said, there are people around the nation who are concerned about older Australians in this COVID pandemic. The pleasing thing to report is that amongst aged-care recipients in the ACT there have been no cases. In the Northern Territory there have been no cases. In Queensland there has been one. In South Australia there have been none. In Tasmania there has been one. In Western Australia there have been none. New South Wales has had more. And Victoria clearly has a high case load.

But it's important to note that, of 208 residential services where there've been outbreaks, 183 of them—the vast majority—have been in Victoria, and 97 per cent nationally have had no outbreak. Why is that important in the context of this discussion? Senator Polley highlighted during her contribution a concern that a nurse saw piles of PPE in rubbish bags out the back of an aged-care home. What that points to is that PPE was provided, and the fact that there were piles of it means it was provided in quantity and, importantly, the staff obviously were following the protocols requiring frequent changing of the PPE. So there's actually a contradiction in the argument, because their own comments have highlighted that PPE, in quantity, was provided and that training was adequate—that people were following the procedures—and the issue here was the waste removal service.

The other point I would make when it comes to understanding the importance of the size of the community outbreak is: look at the hospitals and healthcare workers in Victoria. The state chief health officer in Victoria has now conceded that the majority of healthcare workers who have been infected with COVID-19 have been infected in the workplace. So, while in Australia 1,817 aged-care residents nationwide have contracted COVID, 2,563 healthcare workers in Victoria have contracted COVID. We are talking here about a younger, better trained, better equipped population of Australians in Victoria who have contracted COVID. These are people in professional healthcare environments who've been provided with PPE in accordance with state government and health department requirements, who've received training and who have the back-up staff for when people have to self-isolate—and there's a large case load of health workers who have been fronting up day after day and then having to go into isolation when colleagues have become infected. But, even in that workplace, we've seen a high rate of infection.

What that points to is that COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease and, when you have a high degree of community transmission, even the best of protocols and the best of procedures in a healthcare environment have not stopped 2,563 professional healthcare workers in the Victorian health system from contracting COVID. So to attack the minister for aged care for the outcomes we're seeing in aged-care homes neglects the fact that there is a higher case load of infection among professional health workers, who have all the PPE they need and follow the protocols, and that's because of the infectious nature of the disease.

If you look at the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, a biological safety level ranging from 1 to 4 is assigned to various diseases. An airborne transmissional disease like COVID-19 is normally assigned a biosafety level of 3, or BSL3. They say that for testing you could perhaps roll that back to 2. But, in an environment where aerosols are being created because of the interaction between people, it is highly infectious. Where community transmission has been allowed to grow to such a size, the situation in the health environment in Victoria shows that the aged-care system nationwide is doing well. (Time expired)

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In his answer to my question today we saw the minister for ageing, Minister Colbeck, again fail to say exactly what it is that he did not get right. So how can we know he's fixed it, if he can't even say what he didn't get right?

Now, he's admitted he realised he didn't get it right in the experience of St Basil's, but that was months after the experience at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and it was months after Newmarch House. Even still he says he's having conversations, but this week he hasn't been able to point to one action he's taken in response to warnings. He's referred to conversations, to talking, to letters, to webinars. Well, older Australians need a minister who will hear the warnings, who will take real action, who will get it right and who will protect the 200,000 Australians in aged care.

We also saw in the minister's response to my question more self congratulation. When I used direct quotes from the minister, he said I was doing so dishonestly. Well, these were your quotes, Minister. They were your quotes, and I didn't use them dishonestly; I used your words about these exact issues. It may be difficult for you to hear, but they were your words. This morning you walked away from scrutiny again. You turned your back on this chamber and walked out on an issue you know is so critical not just to the people in here but to the people out there, to everyone with a parent in aged care, whether they've lost them or not, because everybody is scared about what's happening in Victoria. They are terrified about what could be coming to them because they have a minister and a Prime Minister who don't act. From not acting, how can they conclude anything other than that you don't care enough? Because you had warnings and time and time again you failed to heed them. And it is not just during this pandemic; how many reports have sat on your shelves, gathering dust? The warnings existed before the pandemic, they continued to flow during the pandemic and you let your hubris get in the way of action. And that is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable for the families who have lost loved ones and lost them in the loneliest of ways. God forbid we ever have to say goodbye to our parents or our spouses or the people we love like that over Facetime, not being able to hold their hand. It is disgraceful. And self-congratulations doesn't cut it. It doesn't cut it. It's not acceptable. You could have fixed the issues with PPE, and instead we saw health workers with one glove. Just let that image sink in for a moment: one glove. What kind of choices are we putting these workers through? What kind of stress are we putting them through?

And I reject the assertion from the ministers that we are questioning the commitment of aged-care workers. Are you kidding me? Labor is standing here for aged-care workers. We are standing here because we know what they are going through. They want to keep the people they care for alive, but they need support. They need help from the arm of government which is responsible for this sector.

So you can save your self-congratulations. You can save the hubris. You can save the words that I quoted to you and you felt uncomfortable hearing again. I wish I didn't have to quote them to you. I wish I didn't have to ask questions. I wish we weren't sitting here, holding the executive to account over this, but we are, and the least you can do is answer to this chamber. The least you can do is stay in your seat and be part of this debate instead of walking off to your office. The least you can do is listen, act and help. It's a simple thing people are asking of you. You owe that to the Australians in aged care. You owe it to every single Victorian. You owe it to every single Australian.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been listening very carefully to all of the speeches that have been made in this debate but in particular to that speech by Senator Smith that just preceded mine, because she made a very important point in her speech but perhaps didn't realise quite the point she was making when she did so. Senator Smith said that everybody in Victoria is scared. And she's right. As a senator for Victoria and as someone who has just come here to Canberra from Victoria, I know that there is no question about that. A lot of Victorians are afraid. A lot of them are scared about the impact this virus will have on their health and, indeed, the impact that the restrictions put in place to fight the virus will have on their livelihoods.

But there is a clue in that observation by Senator Smith about what the problem might be here. She didn't say, that everybody in her home state of South Australia is scared. She didn't say everybody in New South Wales is scared—another state that has had some outbreaks—or indeed any other state or territory in the federation. We have heard a lot from Labor senators this week about the responsibility that the Commonwealth government has for regulating and funding aged care, and we absolutely accept that responsibility. But the Commonwealth has a responsibility for funding and regulating aged care in every state and territory, not just in Victoria.

So what is different about the problems we are seeing in aged care in Victoria? Is it that the Commonwealth has decided to regulate and fund aged care in Victoria differently? Is it that they provided greater assistance to New South Wales or South Australia or any other state or territory? Or is there something different about Victoria? Clearly, there is something different about Victoria. We have widespread community transmission in Victoria. We don't have it in any other state or territory. Touch wood, I hope we never do again. But we have a very serious second-wave outbreak in Victoria, and that has nothing to do with the Commonwealth's role in regulating or funding aged care. In fact, it's got everything to do with the utter incompetence of the Victoria state government.

I noticed in Senator Smith's contribution before—just as has been the case in every other contribution made this week by Labor senators—that the words 'the Andrews government' or 'the Victorian government' never pass their lips. Never do they point out that we have a problem in aged care in Victoria—unique, so far; we hope always to be unique in Victoria—and not anywhere else in the country. They haven't shown any interest at all—they have made no contributions at all—in how we got to where we are in Victoria. But they should, because we've seen day by day—whether it is through the hotel quarantine inquiry, whether it's before the COVID-19 committee of this Senate, whether it's before the parliamentary inquiry happening in Victoria—that, in the words of the AMA president of Victoria, watching the Victorian government's response to COVID-19 has been like watching a slow car crash.

It has been a disastrous response. It has been a response that has shaken the confidence of all Victorians and, unfortunately, it has been a response that has directly led to the deaths of hundreds of Victorians, including many in aged care. The Victorian government bears the responsibility for this outbreak because the Victorian government has mismanaged hotel quarantine. They've known for months, but we learned last week, that at least 99 per cent of the current outbreak in Victoria is as a result of the failure of hotel quarantine. That's a system that the Victorian government entirely devised and set up on their own. It's a system where they had offers of support from the Commonwealth in the form of ADF assistance, which they turned down and which Daniel Andrews misled the Victorian parliament about, which has been confirmed by Lieutenant General John Frewen before the COVID-19 committee.

They are responsible for this outbreak. They are also responsible for their failures of tracking and tracing. Professor Brendan Murphy, our former chief health officer, now the secretary of the department, gave disturbing evidence last week to the COVID-19 committee, where he revealed the shocking failures of the tracking and tracing system in Victoria. He revealed how underutilised they were, how underresourced they were, how they failed to use the COVID-19 app like the New South Wales government has successfully done. He pointed out that the whole reason this small leak in hotel quarantine became a massive outbreak across Victoria is because of those failures of the Victorian government. No-one in this place should take seriously any lecture from any Labor senator if they fail to mention these facts.

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

First of all, we are seeing the federal government again fail to take responsibility for what is occurring regarding the outbreak of COVID-19 in the aged-care sector. The federal government has failed to take responsibility in the answers that were given through Minister Colbeck today. What's very clear is that the government has lost confidence in its strategy and in its person on front point, the person responsible for turning around aged care and making sure it is properly dealt with in this country.

This week the minister was sidelined from decision-making in his own portfolio. He was excluded from decision-making in the aged-care emergency response. And today in the House Mr Morrison refused on five occasions to get out of his seat and defend the minister's handling of aged care. On five occasions he failed to stand by the minister who has failed in his responsibilities for aged care in this country. When asked to defend the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Mr Morrison endorsed 13 ministers. Not one was Richard Colbeck. If Mr Morrison has no confidence in him then why should Australians? He has lost his responsibility and now he should lose that title.

The Morrison government, through this minister, have failed to listen to the report, entitled Neglect, that came out of the royal commission. They failed to take action. You hear these words from the minister: 'I listened', 'I talked', 'I considered'. What is missing is action. Despite the warnings from the Northern Hemisphere, the warnings from the experts and unions, the warnings from Dorothy Henderson Lodge, in March, and Newmarch, in April, he failed to take appropriate action, and he continues to fail to take appropriate action. Why are we in this mess? Because that failure is part of the pandemic of irresponsibility of this government when it comes to aged care.

The royal commission into aged care just today received a quality and safety report from the University of Queensland, which found that 11 per cent of Australia's 2,700 facilities were rated as providing high-quality care, 11 per cent were offering the worst quality of care, and everything in between. The government have failed to deliver a robust system. They've failed to deliver a system that can make a difference. They've tried to do it on the cheap. Why I say it's on the cheap is that there's report after report saying it's on the cheap. It's estimated that providing the highest quality of care, as found in homes with fewer residents, to all 200,000 residents in facilities would cost an estimated $3.2 billion more than the $18 billion spent by the federal government on aged care in 2018. The government needs to act.

We heard numerous examples of nonpayment of pandemic leave. We just heard that we have PPE but not for when the outbreak is about to occur, not as a risk management decision. They sais: 'We don't have enough PPE in our aged-care facilities. We don't have a plan on how to do that. We don't have a plan for how to use PPE in our aged-care facilities. But, when there's an outbreak, don't worry. We'll somehow find it and rush it down when the outbreak has already occurred.' That is after the event. You need to take action, not just sit back, listen, consider—'I'm hearing what people are saying.' It is about taking action. We've seen so many circumstances of people not receiving PPE, where action hasn't been taken by this government. Recently, the Health Services Union exposed actions that weren't taken in their industry, in aged care. I'll finish with this: an aged-care worker has called for the government to take action so that residential aged-care workers are protected— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.