James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say, I am genuinely a little bit disappointed in the highly political approach that Labor senators have adopted on this issue. This is a real opportunity, I would have thought, for all senators to demonstrate their concern and care for older Australians and to get behind the royal commission in a genuinely and unambiguously bipartisan way. Sadly, we have not seen that. I think one very good piece of evidence of that is the way in which Labor senators have conducted themselves in question time this week compared to how they conducted themselves in question time last week. I think it's a fair question to ask: how many questions did the Labor Party ask about aged care last week in question time in the Senate? This week, on Monday and today, in the Senate they devoted nearly every question to it. What's changed in the intervening period? The Morrison government has taken decisive action to address the widespread and genuine concerns about the quality of care being provided in the aged-care system. The Labor Party have found a sudden and new interest in this issue and are devoting virtually all of their time in question time this week to this issue, but it featured virtually not at all last week. I think that's very telling about the political approach that they're taking to this issue. If they were ahead of the curve on this issue and if they thought this was a genuine issue, they would have been asking just as many questions about this last week as they have this week.

This royal commission is a real opportunity to get to the bottom of the problems in the aged-care industry. The display by Labor senators in question time today is evidence of exactly why a respected institution like a royal commission is necessary to get down to the raw facts and the raw evidence of the problems in the aged-care industry. We don't need to see any more politicisation of it, as we've seen from Labor senators today.

As senators, probably all of us have both professional and personal experience of the aged-care system. In the course of our duties, I'm sure we've all visited many aged-care facilities. Personally, we may have had the experience of putting a parent or a grandparent into aged care or visiting them in aged care, and so we will all know there are some fantastic aged-care homes out there. Some of those excellent homes out there are for-profit homes, some of them are community homes and some of them are faith based institutions or other not-for-profit institutions. We also know that there are some homes out there that are not as good as the leading operators in the field and where the care and quality of service is not as high and not as good as it could be. This royal commission is a real opportunity to get to the bottom of that.

I have to take the opportunity to respond to the claim made in question time today that the government has cut funding to aged care. It's a false claim and Labor senators should know it's a false claim. The last and best word of evidence on this is an article written yesterday. It was published in a publication called Crikey, and it was written by an author called Bernard Keane. I don't think any senator in this place would suggest that Crikey is exactly a newspaper or publication which campaigns for the coalition. I don't think anyone would suggest Mr Keane—and I hope he's not offended by this—is a cheerleader of the Liberal Party or the National Party. But this is what he wrote when it came to the question of aged-care funding. The headline is 'Morrison is right on aged care funding: reports of cuts are fiction'. The article says:

Let's hit the nail on the head early on a key claim that is already being widely circulated about the aged care sector. It's one that is likely to continue to be spread despite the government's efforts to get ahead of Four Corners tonight with a preemptive royal commission. And it's completely wrong: this government did not cut $1.2 billion from aged care funding.

It's pretty easy to check. In Labor's last budget in 2013, residential care funding -- as distinct from home or community or flexible care, the other categories of aged care funding -- was $8.3 billion and forecast to rise to $10.1 billion in 2016-17. The 2017-18 budget shows how much funding the—

government—

actually spent on residential care in 2016-17: $10.9 billion. That is, the Coalition spend nearly $1 billion more than Labor forecast. And that rose to $11.4 billion in the year just ended.

This year’s budget papers annoyingly combine residential and home care numbers—

which he goes on about—

… but the combined total still increases by another $800 million this year.

No cut. Of any kind. Zero. Zip. Nada.

That's in the words of Bernard Keane, a journalist commentating on this issue. I think it should put paid to the false claims being made by Labor in question time today. I hope they cease and desist their attempt to politicise this issue, and I hope they genuinely and bipartisanly get behind the royal commission and support its process.