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

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the performance of the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of Senator Wong, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the performance of the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services.

Let me be clear from the outset: Senator Richard Colbeck has repeatedly demonstrated, over a prolonged period of time, that he is incapable of fulfilling the task of looking after the interests of older, vulnerable Australians. For this matter alone, this minister should resign. If he does not have the decency to resign, the integrity to resign, the self-awareness to resign, the Prime Minister should sack him. And, if the Prime Minister will not sack this minister, then he confirms he does not have the character to lead this nation.

Our aged-care sector is in an absolute crisis. It's the third year of this pandemic. There were almost 12,000 aged-care residents and workers infected with COVID in more than 1,100 facilities as of Friday. There have been over 600 deaths amongst aged-care residents this year. Tens of thousands of aged-care residents are still waiting for a booster dose. Aged-care facilities have been left without rapid antigen tests and PPE. Aged-care residents have been left without food, water and medical care because the government, in a third year of a pandemic, after last year's diabolical handling of COVID in aged care, failed to learn and failed to plan. This government always acts too little too late and only acts when there's an absolute crisis on its hands. We have had hundreds of Australians in aged care die of COVID. How many deaths would have been preventable if only this aged-care minister had acted?

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that the Morrison-Joyce government ignored aged care. It's all there in one word: neglect. That is not my word. That is the word chosen by the royal commission into aged care to title their interim report: Neglect. This is a government that neglected older citizens in aged care before the pandemic, neglected them in the pandemic and continues to neglect them to this day. We had a clarion call from the former Liberal Premier of New South Wales, Mike Baird, who is now CEO of HammondCare, begging this government to send in the Australian Defence Force 26 days ago. The Prime Minister rejected it. This minister rejected it. This minister said the sector was performing exceptionally well. Those were his words. And he felt so relaxed and comfortable about the aged-care sector that he toddled off to the cricket for three days.

Well, he probably did get booed, Senator Bilyk; you make an excellent point. He got booed at the cricket and he should get booted out of his job. It is an absolute disgrace. It is an utter disaster. Disease is running rampant through under-resourced facilities. There are too few staff to care for those living there. Our greatest generation has been left unwashed and without food. Have you no shame? Have you no responsibility? Have you no care? What happened to ministerial responsibility under this government? Where has it gone? Was it ever there? If Richard Colbeck can have job security under this government, it is absolutely clear that there is almost nothing you can't fail at and still be confident of retaining your job under Mr Morrison, who takes no responsibility, who tried to blame the states and other people for the outbreaks of COVID in aged care. He was warned, by the way, on rapid antigen tests. So many people warned him. Katie Allen warned him. The call was coming from inside the House, by the way. The business community warned him. The Transport Workers Union warned him. He was warned that we would need rapid antigen tests and just like his 'It's not a race' approach to vaccines, it was not a race to get those rapid antigen tests—failing older Australians and leaving them behind. To those people who say, 'What would it do to change the minister?': it would send a clear message that this government gives a brass razoo about older people in aged care! Let somebody else—anybody else!—have responsibility for this portfolio, because surely nobody could do as bad a job as the incompetent aged-care minister in the absolute crisis—the C-word he dares not utter—in aged care. The Prime Minister has acknowledged there is a crisis. The Prime Minister backflipped and sent in the ADF. The next thing the Prime Minister needs to do is sack the minister for aged care.