Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is very well for Senator Cormann to attempt to champion the cause of the aged care sector at this late hour. Unfortunately it is too little too late. He was very silent when he was on the government benches. I did not hear him speaking up, demanding these changes. I did not hear him voicing his concerns for Western Australia or Tasmania during his time in the Senate chamber. But he has the hypocrisy to come into this chamber and put a resolution like this without anything to back it up. The aged care sector already knows the importance, or lack thereof, that the opposition placed on their industry in the past. The Australian community knows the opposition’s position on aged care, health, infrastructure and skilling Australia. They made their judgement at the last election and they will once again at the next election make their judgement on what the Rudd Labor government is doing. Likewise, they acknowledge and appreciate the efforts made by the Rudd government to begin the long process of repairing the neglect of this sector. And it will be a long process because it has had so many years of neglect. But we are determined to repair and restore the quality care that older Australians deserve and will get under this government.

We are not talking about a sector that makes inanimate objects, provides intangible services or draws raw materials from the ground. Aged care is a sector that provides care and dignity to human beings who have lived a full life. Sectors such as aged care, health and education deal fundamentally with the human experience and therefore have always, and will always, be given the highest priority by this or any future Labor government.

Mr Acting Deputy President Humphries, I look forward to your contribution, because you and I have had some very interesting inquiries, and I know that you are at least one from that side who has been prepared to say that not enough has been done by the former government. I look forward to your contribution here this afternoon to what I believe is a very important debate. I stand by the report that I happened to be chair for and I stand by the recommendations that we made and will continue to press for the reforms that are needed. We are the ones yet again who have to clean up the mess that the former Howard government left this country in.