Senate debates

Wednesday, 7 February 2007

Questions without Notice

Aged Care

2:53 pm

Photo of Santo SantoroSanto Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

No, it does not make it okay. My departmental officers were advised that the other comments were based on anecdotal evidence and third-hand information heard about over the last three years. That was the advice, and my officers are happy to sign statutory declarations that that was the advice that was provided. We are reduced to hearsay on the front page of the Adelaide Advertiser and in a question asked in the Senate. That is what I have been talking about. Senators opposite have accused me of overstepping when I say that the headline that appeared on the front page of the Adelaide Advertiser is the worst psychological abuse that we can inflict on our residents in aged-care facilities. And the sooner newspapers like the Adelaide Advertiser and the sooner some senators opposite start behaving in a responsible way, the better off our nation builders in our care in Australia’s aged-care facilities will be. I implore the opposition and newspapers to do what is decent, and that is to report accurately and to try to find out the facts and to verify them, as we were very quickly able to.

Furthermore, I can inform the Senate that the academics have refused to identify any homes of concern for further investigation of these claims. I said immediately to my department, ‘Get in there as quickly as possible and let’s see if there is a systemic problem and if there is an issue that we really should be worried about.’ I am further advised by the department that the academics involved did not report these alleged cases of neglect under the Aged Care Complaints Resolution Scheme at any time over the last four years. I believe that it is incumbent upon everybody, whether it is the minister, an opposition senator or anybody else out there within our community, to report cases of neglect such as those described. (Time expired)

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