Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answer given by Senator Colbeck to the question that I asked in relation to the Earle Haven nursing home. We've had another pretty ordinary performance today in question time from the Minister for Aged Care, Senator Colbeck. Yesterday, his performance on these important questions could be best described as 'bumbling', and we've moved on today to 'hopelessly deluded'. Yesterday Senator Colbeck was unable to answer the most basic questions about this terrible incident at the Earle Haven nursing home, where about 70 elderly residents had to be evacuated to other aged-care facilities. He came back to the parliament earlier today to answer the questions he was unable to answer yesterday, revealed that, in fact, the situation at Earle Haven was even worse than we all realised and then had the hide to argue in question time that all of these sanctions issued against Earle Haven amounted to corrective action—that that was the system working and protecting older people, that things were all okay despite sanction after sanction being issued against the operators of this nursing home, a company called People Care.

What we've learned today from the questions that Senator Colbeck has now answered is that, in fact, in the years leading up to the evacuation of residents, there were at least seven sanctions issued against People Care by Senator Colbeck's own agencies for their inability to run the nursing home properly or in line with legislative standards. In addition to those sanctions, there have been 22 complaints made about People Care since 1 January 2018, a bit over a year ago.

These sanctions that were issued against People Care by Senator Colbeck's own agencies were not for small matters like the lawns not being mowed properly or a lick of paint being needed on some of the buildings or the gates; they were for very serious matters. The seven sanctions that have been previously issued against People Care by Senator Colbeck's own agencies are for things like failing to provide elderly residents with a safe environment; does it get more basic than that? This operator was unable to provide a safe environment for elderly residents. Senator Colbeck's agencies knew about that and issued sanctions against People Care, but they've continued operating.

People Care were also judged to have not provided adequate nutrition and hydration to elderly residents in the time leading up to the incident a bit over a week ago, and they've also been sanctioned for not providing the required financial reports. The limited facts that we already have indicate that there's been some sort of financial dispute; either someone was unwilling to pay the staff and the operators or someone didn't have the money to do so. I would have thought that not lodging financial statements might also be a sign that things aren't really working out. As I said, in addition to that, there have been 22 complaints made about People Care in a bit over a year leading up to the evacuation of residents just over a week ago.

Rather than coming in here and saying that this was disturbing, that it does appear that there's been a failure of the system and that the regulators have failed to do their job and have let down these elderly residents, their family members and the staff at this nursing home, Senator Colbeck instead says that that amounts to corrective action, as if everything is fine. I would have thought corrective action meant actually doing something to fix this or to stop this operator from continuing to not provide adequate nutrition and hydration to residents. It might amount to stopping them failing to provide a safe environment. That's what corrective action looks like, rather than handing out a sanction one year, letting things roll on, handing out a sanction another year and this series of events accumulating and getting to a point where a nursing home has to be evacuated and emergency relief has to be found to look after these elderly, vulnerable people.

I can't say that I'm at all satisfied with what Senator Colbeck has had to say so far. It suggests that he doesn't take this seriously, in the way that many people on the Gold Coast do and many people around the country who are concerned about aged care do. He needs to do a much better job answering questions that Gold Coasters have about this incident in the future. (Time expired)