Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (16:44): We've had six years of Liberal federal governments. We've had the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments. With that, we've had three ministers who have failed older Australians. We have a new minister, who unfortunately demonstrated in question time yesterday, and again today, that he isn't across his brief whatsoever. If we go back to the last Labor government, when there were major reforms in aged care in this country and the foundational Living Longer Living Better reforms were brought forward, we see that we did that in a bipartisan manner. The former minister, Mark Butler, engaged with those who were then in opposition. It says a lot about the calibre of those opposite that back then they were willing to work in the interests of all older Australians, but over the last six years—and it's been reaffirmed since the election of the Morrison government—all they have done is use the aged-care sector as a cash cow, an ATM. The Prime Minister has told the Australian people—in particular, older Australians—that he is a Prime Minister who is going to make aged care a priority. Well, we'd better get the facts on the table, on the record. When he was the Treasurer he cut $1.2 billion out of the aged-care sector. The Turnbull-Morrison governments have been taking money out of this sector year after year. What we on this side of the chamber say—and we've said this countless times—is that we are willing to work with the government to bring about the reforms that are necessary to fix the broken aged-care sector in this country, because older Australians deserve nothing less, and families of older Australians deserve nothing less. But we have seen a continuum of failed ministers who haven't been across their portfolios. Quite frankly, I don't think they have demonstrated any real interest in older Australians. And we should be ashamed of that from the government of the day. We now have a minister who has not been able to answer the simplest of questions, which is: how many older Australians who have been approved for their home care package are still waiting for a package? Now, we know it's in excess of 120,000 older Australians. We know that too many older Australians are dying after they have already had their home care package approved. That is unacceptable in this country. It is totally unacceptable for a country as rich as we are here in Australia. We know that around two in three older Australians accessing aged-care services are women. They need to be assured that the support they're getting in their own homes is of the standard that they deserve. We need to know that all checks and balances have been carried out with the service providers. We also need this government—after the failings of the Abbott and Turnbull governments, and now the Morrison government—to address one of the big outstanding issues in relation to aged care in this country, which is that we do not have the workforce we need to ensure that older Australians get the care they need. We are not attracting people to come and work in this very important sector. Why aren't they coming to work? Because (a) they don't get the respect that they deserve, (b) they're certainly not remunerated to the level they deserve and (c) they know they do not have the support of the federal government. That has been demonstrated day after day by the failure of those who are on the government benches now. Australia, we know, has a rapidly ageing population. It's not unique to Australia, but what we have to do is work together to ensure we have the best system possible in this country. The issue of our ageing population is not going to go away. We have to address it. We have to provide support to the sector so that we can attract the number of people we need to care and support older Australians, whether they're living in residential care or whether they are being supported in their own homes. We know that there are always going to be shonky providers or people that really aren't up to the job of caring for people in their own homes. That's why we need to ensure that we have checks and balances in place. We need to ensure that people are meeting the security checks. We need to ensure that the training in this country is uniform. We have done so many inquiries into the aged-care sector in this country. Today in question time we talked about a number of the reports of those inquiries, like the Tune report. All those recommendations have been on the table for two years or more, and they still haven't been fully enacted. We know there have been at least 14 reports over the last six years and they are gathering dust in the minister's office. It's not good enough. To counter all of those reports, after six years of the government's own failing, they had to call a royal commission into their unsuccessful governance of this important sector. Older Australians deserve so much more. Today in question time, when the minister was able to at least give us some sort of response, he said, 'We're not going to do anything until the final report is handed down from the royal commission.' Well, that's just not good enough. The government has had report after report. We have offered to sit down and work with the government to bring about the changes that are needed. We have had recommendations in a report from Mr David Tune, a very respected former public servant. The Carnell report has been ignored. There were only 10 recommendations in that report, and they haven't all been implemented. Why not? I don't like to say it, but I do firmly believe that this government, like the Abbott-Turnbull governments of the past, just do not prioritise older Australians to the level that they need. In the past six years, as demonstrated now with Senator Colbeck as minister, the government have never had a cabinet minister responsible for this important public service area. We did. Former Minister Mark Butler was in cabinet. Before the last election, Labor gave the commitment that, if we were to win office, our minister responsible for aged care and older Australians would be in cabinet, where ministers have the authority to sit around the cabinet table, where the real decisions are made. But what have we got? We have a minister who is the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians and the Minister for Youth and Sport. I think it says a little bit about his capacity as a minister when he doesn't represent a minister from the other place. He's the only minister sitting in the Senate who doesn't rep another minister. That is a telling factor—it really is. As I said, we are prepared to work with them, but after six years we have three failed ministers and a minister now who's obviously just not up to the task, who can't even answer simple questions in relation to the home care package waiting list in this country. He hasn't got an answer for the families of the 16,000 Australians who died after having an assessment made and before getting a package. That's the calibre of the minister that we have in this place, in this government, at this time. It is absolutely shameful. (Time expired)