Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader (Tasmania)) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs (Senator Scullion) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to aged care funding.

What an extraordinary question time when a minister can't even confirm the figures that the government itself has released. Today we witnessed a minister who could not even confirm the figures given out by the government's own department relating to 108,000 older Australian whose are awaiting home care packages. We also saw the budget document which confirms that Treasurer Morrison cut half a billion dollars from the aged-care sector, and then, following on from that, he cut $1.2 billion out of the aged-care sector. And they are wondering why we need to have a royal commission! We have a minister who has 14 reports sitting on his desk, gathering dust, all pointing to the crisis that has been experienced in the aged-care sector over the last five years. What we've also seen today is a government trying to run 100 miles away from the responsibility it has to show leadership in the aged-care sector.

It is not just the Labor opposition calling the government out for their lack of attention and lack of capacity to run this department; it is the sector themselves. On Friday I was with Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, and Julie Collins, the shadow minister for ageing. We had a roundtable in Melbourne that was made up of consumer groups, providers to the aged care sector, people that have developed public policy in this area. They all acknowledged that this government has failed—failed older Australians, failed to deliver on the Living Longer Living Better reforms that the last Labor government set in place.

We've had three ministers over the last four years, and not one of those ministers has had any real interest in the aged care sector. If Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison had any concern at all for older Australians, they would have a minister for ageing in the cabinet. A minister who is in the outer ministry does not have the same influence over a government as one that sits around that cabinet table. We have an ageing population in this country and a rise in dementia, and what we've seen from this government is a fail. On 26 June 2014 the then minister, Senator Fifield, came into this chamber and, without any consultation whatsoever with the sector or within any of the organisations that deliver the services, cut the dementia supplement by $110 million. That was an enormous blow, and that was the beginning of this spiralling out of control of the lack of funding in the aged care sector.

The sector has spoken to the government. We've been out around this country—I have, over the last five years—visiting aged care centres, talking to providers, talking to COTA, and the same issue has been raised with us over and over again. This government has been hell-bent on cutting money out of this sector. We should be investing. They come in here and deny that, out of their own budget papers, the then Treasurer, now Prime Minister, who is crying crocodile tears for older Australians, cut $1.2 billion. And they expect that the providers can provide the same care and support. We know that there's a huge hole in the supply of aged care workers in this country. We know that they've run down and cut funding from the TAFE system, which has the responsibility for training aged care workers. We know that there is so much competition for disability workers that we need to invest to have better training. We need to have more workers. We have heard the calls from the nursing federation wanting more nurses in this sector. We need to include the GPs. We need more GPs providing health care to older Australians. And what have we seen in question time? A failed attempt, just like this government has failed to protect and look after the most vulnerable people in our community. They come in here and talk about older Australians building this country. Each and every one of them should be ashamed of themselves. This Prime Minister can cry crocodile tears, but he was the Treasurer who cut the funding. He was the one who started with almost $2 billion in funding cuts. (Time expired)