Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This is not a government; this is a shambles, a rabble defined by division, disunity and dishonesty. And that's not the problem; the problem is that the result of that has led to dysfunction, and the government's incompetence is having a real impact on real people. This is a government which, in the lead-up to Christmas, were too busy giving each other pats on the back and high fives to worry about the crisis that was impending. Riding around in a racing car around Bathurst—remember that? The great pretender was pretending he was a racing car driver, saying he was looking through the windscreen, not looking through the rear-view mirror. Well, if he were looking forward, he would have been planning for the crisis, because that crisis is at its most acute in aged care.

There have been over 600 deaths this year. There are 1,176 outbreaks right now. Tens of thousands of aged-care residents have not got their booster shots. Over half the aged-care workforce have not got their booster shots, 12,000 residents and workers are infected as we speak, and between 20 and 25 per cent of staff are off each and every day. Residents—in 2022, in Australia—are unable to get food and water and are having their wounds untended because no-one is looking after them. They're unable to get a shower or even get a wash. This is the real-life experience of older Australians today. Most tragically, older Australians, many of whom we know are in aged care affected by dementia, are scared, frightened and alone, locked in their rooms, in their last days. Their loved ones are unable to go and say goodbye.

And yet we have this hand-picked minister who has shown complete contempt for the fundamentals of doing his job. He's a minister who is too busy to attend committee meetings and be held accountable and too lazy to know what's going on in the sector. What is his response when he finally turns up to a committee meeting? He says the sector is going 'exceptionally well'. That's his response. This is a prime minister who has said repeatedly that it wasn't appropriate for the Defence Force to go into aged care: 'No, they can't assist there.' He just yesterday changed his mind on that and sent the Defence Force into aged care, one month after the former Liberal Premier Mike Baird, who now leads one of the major aged-care providers, called for it. It follows, of course, the flip at the National Press Club on providing any support at all to aged-care workers, with a $400 payment—one to be given in March and one to be given, almost with how-to-votes, in May. What a cynical exercise by a cynical political government! But what they haven't taken account of is that it's a pro rata payment. Do you know what the figure is of direct-care workers in aged care who are permanent full time? It's six per cent. Six per cent of people will get the $400. It says everything about the need for secure work in this country—the fact that a sector like that is in a position where just six per cent are permanent full time. The aged-care crisis is indicative of the way this Prime Minister and this government approach every issue. It's always too little, too late, and it's always the case that they ignore a problem until it becomes a crisis.

In the first summer when I was Labor leader, we had the bushfire crisis, where the Prime Minister said that he didn't hold a hose, showed no empathy and acted, in the words of the New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, as 'more concerned with politics than people'. The second summer was the summer of the vaccine neglect—'It's not a race!'—that led to the failure when it came to lockdowns and the slow rollout of the boosters. And the third, of course, was rapid antigen tests. 'It's not my job; it's not my job.' He thinks his job is dressing up. Whether it's a racing car driver, a fighter pilot, a cook, or a hairdresser washing someone's hair last Friday—if you want photo-ops he's your guy, but if you want someone to govern the country you should vote Labor when the election comes, because the fact is that this Prime Minister is too busy pretending to do other jobs to do his day job.

The crisis continues, and not just in aged care. Real wages are going backwards, insecure work is increasing, productivity is flatlining, living standards are falling, people are becoming more and more insecure, and yet this parliament sits for 10 days in six months because they have no agenda for this term, let alone an agenda for a second day in office. This is a government in which the latest PM, when he got the job, described the government in his own words as a 'muppet show'. At least The Muppet Show was educational! The problem is that this government never learns anything from its mistakes. They're just repeated over and over again, because it's all politics, no substance. At the height of the bushfires, the New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, called that out. She called that out at a time when people were losing their lives, people were losing their homes and communities were under siege.

The Deputy Prime Minister said he regarded the Prime Minister as 'a hypocrite and liar from my observations and that is over a long time.' That was after he had served as Deputy Prime Minister the first time, sat in a cabinet with the then Treasurer for six years and served in parliament side by side with him for 15 years. This was a considered opinion in the context of the Prime Minister saying that no-one told him about a reported sexual assault just metres from his office for two years, even though his own office knew, people in parliament knew, it occurred in the defence minister's office and the defence minister's chief of staff went to work for him just after the alleged incident occurred.

I say this to the Australian people—and I don't think, I know this to be the case. Imagine if this government fought for you with the energy that they fight each other. Imagine if they had that commitment, that diligence and that passion that they show when they fight each other. If they did that, they'd be fighting for the interests of aged-care residents. If they did that, they'd be fighting for the interests of aged-care workers. If they did that, they'd be fighting for the interests of people in insecure work. If they did that, they'd be fighting for people whose living standards are going backwards because wages aren't keeping up with the cost of housing and rent, the cost of petrol and the cost of food and groceries. Young people are struggling to buy a house. This government says that it's all okay, it's all hunky-dory, even at the height where you have people in aged care being locked away and being unable to get the basic essentials of care, and there isn't food on the shelves of supermarkets. When we have an absolute crisis, the government are all spin and no substance, which is why they don't deserve another term in office.

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