Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition is opposed to suspending standing orders in the purposes that have just been announced by the government. The request from the government that has appeared on the Notice Paper today is that, without knowledge and without prior warning, a massive change is to occur that will have an impact across aged-care services. There is a separate policy debate, which no doubt the House will get into, given the numbers in the chamber and where this vote will end up. But in the immediate term there is a question as to whether it is right and proper for a decision of this gravity—a decision involving, as I am advised, more than $1 billion of expenditure—which is something that will reach into aged-care services and dementia-care services all around Australia, to be debated by the parliament on the basis that it appeared for the first time on the Notice Paper this morning. Deliberations for aged care are something where there should be a government announcement, a reasonable debate and an opportunity for the public to participate in the debate. A decision of this gravity should not be done through a suspension of standing orders by the government and every member of parliament be put in a situation where they are hearing about this issue for the first time and being expected to vote on it immediately. Not only that, we are aware that both sides of politics have their party room meetings during the time that this debate will be taking place. You could not get a worse situation for making sure that the parliament is properly informed and properly able to participate in a debate than what the government is trying to do right now. I stress, if ever there were an argument, that it was not proper to suspend standing orders to bring a debate on. That is what we are seeing before us at this very moment. What is proposed when you suspend standing orders is that the other business of the day is not as important—that you have matter of particular urgency. The government has discovered this urgency within the last 24 hours. It has discovered it without consultation with the aged-care sector, without consultation with the people who will be impacted on this.

As I understand it, we are talking about a sector which has staff turnover in the order of 40 per cent, and the supplements which are being sought to be disallowed are supplements that go to nurses, to carers, to community helpers and to admin staff. They are supplements that actually have an impact, far and wide, on whether or not people are—

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