Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services (Senator Colbeck) to questions without notice asked by Senators Watt, O'Neill and Pratt today relating to COVID-19 vaccinations for aged care workers and to quarantine facilities.

In estimates we saw Minister Colbeck asked on numerous occasions—I think it was 11, as Senator Watt referred to—about what the responsibility of the federal government is in relation to vaccinations not only for older Australians but older workers. He wasn't able to give us a direct answer during estimates, but clearly he did today. Families with parents, grandparents, aunties and friends in residential aged care are asking the Australian government: has this government ensured that every older Australian in residential care that wants to be vaccinated has had a vaccination? They also want to know—because it's critically important—that aged-care workers have had access to a vaccination.

Today we heard the minister say that vaccinations are available for aged-care workers if and when they want them. But the reality is that they have to take time off work—and, quite frankly, too many of them have to work across a number of sites—to find the time to do that. The simplest, easiest plan would have been to roll out vaccinations to older residents and to staff. We've heard that the government was given advice that they shouldn't happen at the same time. That advice doesn't say that they couldn't have gone back and started that program. What is just as alarming is that the supplement being paid to aged-care workers so that they didn't have to work across more than one site during the pandemic was taken away, and it then, when we saw another outbreak in Victoria, had to be reintroduced. That's just not good enough. There is no planning by this government.

During this pandemic, this government has had two responsibilities: (1) to roll out the vaccine; and (2) to provide quarantine. What have we seen from this government? No leadership whatsoever. It can't even roll out the vaccine in a timely manner. We still to this day do not know accurately how many aged-care workers have in fact been vaccinated even once, let alone had a second dose. It is not good enough.

We have seen from this government a failure to accept responsibility for quarantine. There is no reason why there should not have been federally funded quarantine facilities purpose built for such a contagious virus as COVID-19. But we have not seen that leadership. We have one such facility, and there have been no outbreaks from that. Everyone knows only too well that hotel quarantine has, on the whole, been a failure. Hotels are not built to accommodate people quarantining due to COVID-19. It is unacceptable to have hotels in inner cities trying to do the job this government has failed to do—providing purpose-built quarantine facilities. Every state and territory should have one of those facilities. That is the safest and best way to protect older Australians.

Time and time again we've seen this minister's failings in this portfolio. During estimates I asked: what is the protocol for new residents, older Australians, going into residential care, to ensure that they have been vaccinated? They couldn't tell me; they had to take that on notice. With the deaths we've had in this country in residential aged care, they couldn't tell me what the protocol is. Ask them what happens when those residents, for whatever reason—they may have been ill or they may not have been ready to have the COVID-19 vaccine administered to them—change their minds and want to have the vaccine. How is that protocol being rolled out? No answers. Silence again and, 'We'll have to take that on notice.' It is not good enough. This government has failed— (Time expired)