Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to this debate. This pandemic is a tragedy. It has visited tragedy upon hundreds of Australians. There have been 525 deaths in Australia from the COVID pandemic and over 300 deaths in aged care. This is an absolute tragedy, and the minister has been very eloquent in expressing the sympathy of all those on this side of the chamber for every one of those deaths, be it within an aged-care facility or within a hospital environment. It is an absolute tragedy, and we understand that. That is why the response to the pandemic, and, particularly, the response to the current issues in Victorian aged care are our absolute priority. In fact, the Prime Minister has said, 'This is my No. 1 focus.'

All services with an active case of COVID-19 are receiving support from the Australian government, including a single case manager, access to PPE, special residential aged-care testing facilities, and access to surge workforce and supplementation. We are extraordinarily grateful, as a government, to our surge workforce partners and other agencies who are supporting aged-care services impacted by this dreadful pandemic. These workers are providing essential support in these facilities under extraordinarily difficult and challenging circumstances. It is expected that all services accessing these support services will continue to provide the essential care that residents need. In particular, I wish to call out to the around 50 volunteer nurses and other healthcare workers from Western Australia who volunteered to fly to Victoria to act as part of that surge workforce in aged-care facilities and within other healthcare facilities. That is an extraordinary self-sacrifice and goes to the heart of what it means to be an Australian in such times of difficulty, where we support one another and help one another. We provide the assistance we need across borders to provide the services that those elderly Australians, particularly in care facilities within Victoria, need at the moment. In fact, over 450 Commonwealth funded surge staff have been deployed to Victorian aged-care services to date. ADF personnel—and I pay tribute to my colleague from Western Australia Minister Reynolds—are onsite in residential service facilities, and additional ADF clinical reserve staff are available for deployment.

The federal and Victorian governments have worked together to establish a dedicated Victorian Aged Care Response Centre in Melbourne to coordinate support for each aged-care provider experiencing a COVID outbreak in Victoria. A number of staff have been embedded in Victoria to provide assistance. This includes the Australian government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer , who is providing infection control expertise and emergency management support. The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre has now stood up family engagement capability, including support services with inbound calls, outbound calls and messages via Services Australia, OPAN services and Zoom meetings. The Commonwealth has deployed AUSMAT to Victoria, which will act under the direction of the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre to assist with the management of COVID-19. AUSMAT provides leadership in nursing, clinical care, infection prevention and control and the use of PPE for impacted aged-care facilities. On 20 July the Australian and Victorian governments, in collaboration with representatives from the aged-care sector, announced additional measures to ensure aged-care providers are equipped to minimise the spread of COVID-19 and continue to provide quality care.

Once again, my thoughts prayers go to those families who suffered a loss in this dreadful pandemic.