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

Can I, at the outset, reject completely the premise of the question from Senator Brown. This government, I think quite wisely, made provision to support senior Australians—when there were issues at the supermarkets, when there were issues with senior Australians being able to get out—to be able to access support that they might require. We put in place a range of measures that supported senior Australians to be able to get the services that they required. In fact, I'm pleased that not so many people needed to have emergency food supplies provided to them.

But I do know that a number of the other measures that we put in place to assist senior Australians, to provide food, to provide meals, were extremely successful. For example, in some areas the number of people receiving Meals on Wheels services increased by 50 per cent. That was another of the elements that we put in place to assist senior Australians that were having problems getting food. We made provision for what we estimated might be required by senior Australians under that particular program. Senior Australians were freely able to apply for the food boxes. It was a demand-driven process. The fact that we did not need to send out those boxes, I think, shows the success of many of the other measures that we put in place, including the extraordinary additional support that's been provided to senior Australians through programs like Meals on Wheels, who have, as I said, in some places had up to a 50 per cent increase in demand and service provision.