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

My question is to the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, Senator Colbeck. How many Australians in aged care have died from COVID-19 since 1 January 2022?

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

Since 1 January this year, there have been 12,088 infections in residential aged care in Australia. That's residents who have contracted the virus. Of those, the latest data that I've received is that 587 have passed away. I might add at this point that those just over 12,000 infections in 2022 are off the back of over two million infections in the Australian community. Two million—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

The interjections from the other side demonstrate that the Labor Party aren't interested in the reality of the circumstances out there. They're only interested in playing their cheap, nasty, dirty, personal politics. That's what they do.

I would like to put on the record here today my thanks and congratulations to the sector and the workforce for the work that they have done through the pandemic and for their improved performance. In 2020, 7.5 per cent of infections in this country were in aged care. This year, in 2022, that number is 0.6 per cent of infections. That is the result of the work that the sector has done in conjunction with government. That is due to the infection control leads that were put in there and funded by the government back in 2020. It's the result of the infection control training that aged-care workers and providers have put in place. It's put in place— (Time expired)

Slade Brockman (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk, a supplementary question?

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

How many Australians in aged care who died from COVID-19 since January had not had their booster shots?

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

As we indicated to the Select Committee on COVID-19 last week, that data is not available to us at this point in time because of lags in reporting through the state committees of births, deaths and marriages—

To ensure that we can receive that data—as you've said, Senator Keneally—we've put in place a taskforce to pull together that data and provide it to the community and to the parliament in a more timely way. It's very important information for us to all understand. But, in terms of the boosters, in the context of the boosters, we started the booster program on 8 November last year. On 12 November or thereabouts, we got advice to bring the dates forward, and on Christmas Eve we got advice to bring it forward even further, which we have done. (Time expired)

Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. I notice that the minister has regularly gone over time and I draw your attention to that.

Slade Brockman (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have called the minister at the time of the clock expiring. Senator Bilyk, a second supplementary question?

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

A task force after 22 negative reports is pretty pathetic, really. Instead of fixing the supply of PPE, workforce shortages and the booster rollout, Senator Colbeck went to the cricket for three days. How many Australians in aged care need to die before this minister—that's you, Senator Colbeck—finally accepts there's a crisis on his watch and resigns?

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

I was going to say it's nice to see Senator Bilyk back after an absence, which it is. I thank her for the question. The focus of the government all the way through the pandemic has been to work with the health system and the aged-care sector to support both of those sectors. That has been one of the foundation elements of our approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is a pandemic. People will catch the virus, and there will be inevitable, unfortunate outcomes of that. We continue to work every day to clear up the issues that crop up in relation to the pandemic. We've acknowledged publicly that we had supply chain issues with the supply of PPE. We've got additional assistance to the National Medical Stockpile to support that. We've supplied over nine million RATs to residential aged-care centres since August to support them in their efforts, and we will continue to do that.