Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, I have been told that, if a minister for ageing wanted to visit a nursing home, they had to get the permission of the provider or be invited in. This means that, if a minister were concerned, they could not go to a nursing home without giving any sort of advance warning. When I approached the department about this, they were very, very surprised by this inquiry. They said this was highly unusual. Why did they say that it was unusual? The reason they said it was unusual is that previous Liberal ministers only wanted to see nice nursing homes. That is right: previous Liberal ministers only wanted to see nice nursing homes. What this shows is that the previous government was so out of touch it only wanted to see smiling faces and ribbon cuttings. That is all it wanted to see. I can tell you from my experience as a police officer that sometimes life is not just a sweet-smelling bouquet of flowers. Sometimes it is tougher. Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves, go in there and see what is going on firsthand. But the Liberals did not do that in aged care, not at all.

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