Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a previous speaker said, the aged-care system is in crisis but it's not something that I've just become aware of in the last couple of days—unlike the Prime Minister. Ever since being elected to this House, I have been speaking on this issue, because I have seen with my own eyes, in my community—by responding to the concerns of those in our community who have their mums, dads, nannas and pops in our aged-care facilities—that this is a system under crisis.

The Prime Minister has been the architect of cuts that have put this incredible pressure on our aged-care system. It can't be denied. In the first budget alone he was responsible for ripping $1.2 billion away from the care of our elder Australians. There's no way that you can rip that sort of funding out of our system, and it's been over $2 billion since this Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison rock show of a government. That sort of funding ripped out of this system has brought us to the crisis point we're in now.

Embarrassingly, the Prime Minister is now thinking that he can announce a royal commission and just crab walk away from those cuts. What he should do today, here in the House, is be honest with the Australian people, admit to ripping the funds out of that system and commit to putting them back.