Senate debates

Tuesday, 9 May 2006

Questions without Notice

Aged Care

2:25 pm

Photo of Cory BernardiCory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro. Will the minister inform the Senate of any developments in the provision of more aged care places for our elderly Australians? Is the minister aware of any responses to these developments?

Photo of Santo SantoroSanto Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | | Hansard source

At the outset, can I congratulate Senator Bernardi on his swearing-in today as a truly quality senator from South Australia. I wish him every success and enjoyment as a senator. I thank him for the honour of asking me his first question.

Last week, I announced the Australian government’s funding of over $930 million for more than 28,500 new aged care places over the next three years. We will make 7,678 of these places available for allocation in 2006-07 through the 2006 aged care approvals round. They have an estimated annual recurrent funding value of $230 million. The latest release of new places for the next financial year and the announcement of indicative numbers for new places for 2007-08 and 2008-09 mean that the government will have made more than 109,000 new aged care places available since 1996. I repeat that figure: 109,000.

These new places will enable aged care providers to deliver a range of world-class residential and home based aged care services to older Australians. In addition, I am proud that the Howard government has delivered on its 2001 election commitment to provide almost 200,000 operational aged care places by June 2006.

Senator Bernardi also asked what response there has been to my announcement of funding for further places. I acknowledge and welcome comments from the ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, in his press release issued on 1 May, in which he warmly welcomed my announcement of hundreds of additional places for older Canberrans, and said:

This allocation is higher than the ACT Government had expected and is a very welcome development ...

While I appreciate Mr Stanhope’s professional response and willingness to recognise the good work done by the Howard government, I note that federal Labor’s spokesperson on ageing, Senator McLucas, is only interested in making baseless political points. In her haste to attack and blame the government over a shortage of beds in the ACT, a furphy Senator McLucas calls ‘phantom beds’, she failed to mention that this problem exists because of ACT planning laws and regulations which have prevented more beds becoming operational—something the Stanhope government itself has acknowledged, and I recognise that it is very responsibly dealing with it.

Trying to establish exactly what Senator McLucas was on about in relation to phantom beds, I stumbled across a definition of ‘phantom’ which I thought better describes her work output. Answers.com describes a phantom as ‘something apparently seen, heard or sensed but having no physical reality’. I really think that that adequately sums up Senator McLucas, who has been true to form in not letting the truth get in the way of some cheap politicking, which she indulges in on almost a daily basis.

While the government gets on with its important job, and while Senator McLucas continues her campaign, we will merely treat her comments as they should be treated—simply as background noise. It is about time that Senator McLucas stopped politicking about outcomes which even her Labor colleagues are happy to acknowledge have been very worth while.