Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Hansard source

Well, we all saw it today: Labor putting politics over people. We heard about how they've been using algorithms, a computer that says no, with no capacity for a human being to override the decisions of the computer. How is that possible when older Australians, those in the most frail period of their lives, are different? Every single human being is different—life experience, medical conditions and the way that people age. So how is it that the Labor Party for one minute thought an algorithm could work out what they need? And, worse, they couldn't tell us—or wouldn't tell us—how many people on the aged-care waiting list that keeps getting longer and longer under Labor have died who had already had an assessment that they needed care? The number is around 5,000. Just absorb that for a minute. Every person living has someone who's older than them who loves them and who they love in return. It is devastating for people to watch their older people not being cared for as they should be.

There have been so many examples of failure by the Labor government. This week, the coalition received an email from a woman in Tasmania of 76 years of age. She's on her ninth guide dog. That guide dog is essential for her independence, dignity and wellbeing. These are her words. She was on a home-care package that had been covering the cost of those guide dogs at about $5,000 a year. But, under Labor's new home support scheme, her support for her guide dogs is going to be capped at $2,000. It's woefully inadequate, cruel and mean. Imagine being blind, being that age and being frail and then getting the news that the very thing that gives you independence you're going to have to, as you get older, pay for a large proportion of yourself. In her words, she says: 'It's disingenuous to tout the no-worse-off principle'. There you have it—a participant who tells us it's a lie. She's anxious and concerned, and we heard that over and over again from people who had that dreadful algorithm applied to their care.

Waitlists have blown out under Labor. You're only replacing people on the waitlist when people die or go into care, so they no longer need it—again, a misrepresentation of the reality. These people in our communities and their families know it to be true: Labor is putting politics over people. That's the truth of your care of our ageing. (Time expired)