Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Health) Share this | Hansard source

On the Four Corners program, let me say I was aware that the ABC, following Oakden South Australia, had started to interview and speak to senior Australians who had raised issues with them about the quality of care in aged-care facilities. In fact, if I remember and recall back to Oakden, 7.30 did a series of stories out of the Northern Territory initially, then out of a couple of other locations, around the quality of care that was not being provided to senior Australians. I was not aware of the specific stories on Four Corners last night. I did not have the specificity of detail on that. I was interviewed by Four Corners. They asked me a range of questions to do with the way in which aged care is provided to senior Australians, they talked about a range of issues to do with quality of food, they asked about incidents, they asked about the quality agency and they explored numerous other matters with me. They also mentioned that they had received 4,000 responses from Australians across the nation.

I noticed last night that Four Corners started by acknowledging that the Prime Minister had called for a royal commission, which they welcomed. That was important because they recognised, equally from their stories and from the information they had, that there is something wrong in the system. When I looked at those incidents last night and all three families, I saw things that would not have been picked up by the quality agency, had they gone in there. There are elements around that.

Mr Shorten interjecting—

Leader of the Opposition, I'm not fearmongering, nor are we trying to do the royal commission to fearmonger. I think the bipartisan approach is absolutely critical in what we do, Leader of the Opposition. I did make comments at the time, and I acknowledged yesterday that I did make comments, but they were based on a point in time and a set of circumstances to which I responded. But, on this, it is absolutely important that we continue to focus on the safety and quality of life of Australians within aged care. I was quite disturbed by those stories last night, because I did not expect to see Australians in aged care, who'd been entrusted into the care of providers, to be given the experiences that we saw. Let me say that all of us have to think about making sure—

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