Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not in direct response to a question in question time this afternoon but, rather, as an aside, Senator Abetz was justifying some of the comments made by Senator Santoro in response to a direct question—not a criticism, but a direct question about what was happening in aged care. I really hope that Hansard picked up the comment from Senator Abetz. His response was that, in his answer, the minister was contextualising. I thought that summed it up. What happens whenever people from this side of the chamber ask specific questions about issues—and it is particularly in aged care, but it could be justifiable across any other responses that we try to obtain—is that, instead of listening to the question and working out what the response is, which sometimes they may not know, and attempting to provide a response, they go into a litany of history about what happened in the past and in particular what happened in previous Labor governments.

Whilst that is interesting—and I think Senator Santoro actually used in one of his responses the words that something would be ‘of interest’ to people in the Senate—and whilst the historical context to most responses is interesting, basically what we are trying to achieve in parliament through the parliamentary questions process is to ask questions about now and the future and sometimes about what has not been done in the recent past. It does not seem to me that it should be too difficult to try to obtain some particular information.

What we were asking about today was fire safety standards. This has been an ongoing issue. In fact, in the historical lesson which we received we found out that the issue of fire safety in aged care homes has been around for a very long time. It is not untoward for people to ask about—particularly as we tend to find out information from the minister by media release—or try to find out about what is happening with regard to the figures that we have been told of through the media release on homes that have not met the standards.

In my short time in this place these questions have been regularly asked at the Senate estimates process. It has been an ongoing issue. The response which came out of an industry discussion around what could be achieved to upgrade buildings and facilities, in particular in terms of safety, was a particular funding allocation, which we actually celebrated. Contrary to what Senator Patterson said in her comments, we actually acknowledged that giving a particular line of finance was a good thing. What we are trying to find out now, though, is what is happening. In terms of the over 200 homes which have been publicly identified as not meeting the expectation for fire safety, what is occurring to ensure that they do? That would not seem to be such a difficult question, but we cannot receive a response.

Subsequently, we heard again from the minister about a new and I think very positive initiative—the website that has been produced by his department. I am not quite sure how we were supposed to know about that website, because I have not seen that press release yet. My understanding is that it was announced with great fanfare in this place last week. Somehow no-one from this side of the chamber seemed to be aware that its launch was going on. I congratulate the minister on launching a new website process. I think that is useful.

The website will actually tell the people of Petrie, Longman and other places in the area where I happen to have my office why, when the target ratio that has been proclaimed proudly by the government—again, by press release—of 88 beds per 1,000 citizens over 70, the number of accessible beds in their part of the world, a particularly beautiful part of the world, falls short by over 160.

The website is a good initiative. It is good to be able to go to it and look at what is available. But a website does not give you a bed. It would be more useful if we could have beds provided. We acknowledge that the government has spent money on aged care, but it is our job to ensure that we hold the government to account for the wide-ranging promises it makes to the community, see that those promises are kept. You cannot claim that you are meeting the aged-care needs of the community when in particular regions of my own state those ratios are not being met. We do applaud positive initiatives, but we think that our job as parliamentarians is to ensure that the government is held to account. And when I visit that website, which I will, I hope that every facility is named. (Time expired)