Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians (Senator Colbeck) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to COVID-19 and aged care.

'Nothing worked well from the outbreak.' 'I thought we were prepared. Nothing prepared us for what was to come.' 'I couldn't believe this was happening in my country.' These are just some of the words from the Commonwealth's review into the Newmarch House COVID-19 outbreak, released today. That outbreak happened in April, some four months ago, and 19 older Australians died. Before that, there were warnings from overseas about the devastating impact of COVID on aged care. The alarm bells were ringing, but the Morrison government was not listening.

Today's report on Newmarch House confirms, as do the answers we heard from Senator Colbeck, that the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senate Colbeck, and the Morrison government did not have a plan in place to manage the COVID outbreaks in aged care in Australia. As we heard in question time today, 335 aged-care recipients have passed away from COVID-19. There've been 1,761 COVID-19 cases in aged care. Each one of these numbers is a real person. It is somebody's mother or father; it is somebody's grandmother or grandfather; it is somebody's spouse or someone's life partner. These are some of Australia's most precious citizens. These are people who helped build the nation, who fought for it in several wars, who worked and built community, raised families and created jobs, who were part of their church or their local service organisations. And these older Australians are dying at home alone. They're dying in residential aged-care homes alone. They're lucky if they get to hold the hand of a staff member in aged care.

Let's just imagine what kind of death we are talking about, because I sometimes think there is a perception that old people simply pass away, and perhaps that is a perception you could take from the lack of a response and the lack of a plan from the Morrison government. But old people don't just simply die. This is a highly contagious disease that attacked older Australians in residential aged care when there was not a plan in place to manage infection control, when there was not a plan in place to replace workforce when they got sick, when there was not a plan in place for protective equipment. And these older Australians, who are vulnerable to this disease, got sick, and they're dying alone.

Let's understand what kind of death that is. I heard one of the adult children of a woman who died in St Basil's describe on radio that experience—of having to watch his mother's death at a distance, of not being able to hold her hand or touch her. Can you imagine being in the last moments of your life and not being able to touch your children? Can you imagine watching your mother or father die just feet from you—maybe through a window, through a mask—and not being able to hug them in the last moments of their existence? Can you imagine your husband or your wife on their deathbed, and you can't even hold their hand in comfort? That's what kind of death this is.

We should not be surprised that our aged-care homes were unable to cope with this, because, if you look at the interim report handed down by the royal commission into aged care, that report called it 'neglect'. It's not called 'compassionate care', it's not called 'preparedness', it's not called 'living with dignity in your old age'; it is called 'neglect'. It talks about our senior citizens—our mums and dads, our grandparents and aunts and uncles—being in aged-care homes with open sores and physical abuse and malnourishment. It talks about a lack of infection control, whether we're talking about diarrhoea or COVID-19.

I just want to pay tribute right here to the aged-care frontline workers. I have met many of them. I've met them, and they're in tears, some of them, because they know they don't have the time or the resources or the support to give the care that they know that their residents need. And they're distressed too; they're on the front line of this outbreak.

The fact that we have a minister who hasn't engaged fully enough with this crisis in aged care, from the handing down of a report called Neglect through to last Friday, when he didn't know the answers to basic questions through to question time today—we need a plan and we need it today; we needed it yesterday, we need it tomorrow, we need it right now, to look after our senior citizens in aged care.