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

LBECK (—) (): I thank you, but what a completely incoherent question! Again, Labor is dishonestly taking out of context comments that I made about the performance of the sector versus the circumstance with respect to the filling of shifts through the surge workforce. As I said in my previous answer, the surge workforce was not designed, never was designed, to fill every vacant shift in residential aged care during COVID. It was there to provide assistance to providers who weren't able to fill specific shifts in certain circumstances of extreme need. That's what we've done. Over 18,000 shifts we've provided support for. We've continued to build that capacity as we've been able to and put additional resources towards it, and we will continue to support the sector as they work their way through the pandemic.