Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

In taking note of answers to questions today, I make the point that a theme has become evident in question time today. We had the extraordinary attempt to defend the misleading of the Senate through Senate estimates that Senator O’Brien and Senator Sherry have referred to, but we also saw the embarrassing display from Senator Santoro when he refused to correct the record, to come clean with the Senate and to tell the truth about what he said in answer to my question yesterday. Today he has only dug himself deeper into the mire.

Yesterday I asked a very clear question about the fire safety standards. I asked the minister to confirm that 31 December was the deadline for aged care providers to meet upgraded fire safety standards that were introduced in 1999—and that is significant. I asked him how many residential aged care facilities and how many beds were still not compliant with the fire safety standards. I asked him whether the government policy of ‘reviewing’—I need to put that in inverted commas—those non-compliant facilities was going to continue and whether any sanctions would be imposed because these places were not compliant with the 1999 fire safety standards. I was very clear.

His answer was somewhat bemusing to many people; I think it would have been to any person with even a modicum of understanding of how the aged care system works in this country. He said that he had been:

... reliably informed by my department that there are only 10 nursing homes in Australia that do not fall within the accreditation and certification processes that have been referred to by Senator McLucas.

I was a bit confused, because the website that Senator Santoro’s department produces shows us that there are some 700 homes that are still not compliant with the 1999 fire safety regulations, but I was prepared at that point to say, ‘Right. There has been a huge change. There are now only 10 homes that are not compliant with those fire safety standards.’ That is not the case, and Senator Santoro knew that very shortly after he misled the Senate. He was talking about 10 homes that are not compliant with the accreditation system at the moment because of a related fire safety issue. But he knew very shortly after he attempted to answer that question that he had misled the Senate. He was provided with a brief during question time.

The decent thing to do would have been to get up at one minute past three, when question time finished yesterday, and explain to the Senate. He has been in the job for a week; we do not expect him to be completely across a complex area of policy, as aged care is, but he should have done the decent thing and he did not. He missed that opportunity at one minute past three. The next opportunity was at 3.30 pm. He should have taken that but he did not. The next opportunity he had was at 9.30 this morning, and he was very well aware of that. He knew that he could have stood up in this place and said, ‘Yesterday, when I answered Senator McLucas’s question, I was talking about the accreditation scheme rather than the fire safety standards compliance.’ He could have come clean and that would have been the end of it.

I used to be a school teacher. We would tell little boys, ‘If you make a mistake, come clean and you won’t get any deeper into the mess.’ But Senator Santoro, I am afraid, is getting further into the mire, because today at question time he has made it even worse. Today at question time he tried to wriggle out of it by producing some confusing answer as to why he answered in the way he did yesterday. Any residential aged care provider reading the transcript of yesterday’s and today’s proceedings will know that this minister does not understand the difference between the accreditation scheme that is operational in his department and the fire standards compliance issue. Those are two fundamental issues. They are on the first page of the briefing notes given, Minister. It is obviously clear that you are not taking the time to get across this complex area of policy, and I urge you to do so. The industry needs a competent, knowledgeable minister to ensure that the issues that face them are progressed. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.