Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

The government's intention with respect to ACAT and RAS services—the assessment teams for the aged-care sector—is to do what the Tune review recommended, which is to bring together a single assessment workforce. That's the government's intention. The government has never said, as the opposition continues to dishonestly claim, that we were going to privatise. We've never said that. I've reiterated that in the chamber a number of times, and the government has reiterated that a number of times in the statements we've made to the multitude of dishonest motions that the opposition has brought forward. We have never said that we wanted to privatise the assessment service, but what we want to do is to do what Tune said to do, which is to bring together a single assessment workforce. Further, the royal commission said that that was an urgent reform.