Senator COLBECK (Tasmania—Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians and Minister for Youth and Sport) (14:22): I thank Senator Keneally for her question. As I have said a number of times today and as I said yesterday, we will work extremely closely and cooperatively with the states to ensure that senior Australians get the assessment services that they require for their entry into the aged-care sector in an appropriate form and in a way that— The PRESIDENT: Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Wong, on a point of order? Senator Wong: My point of order is direct relevance. There are a lot of word games being played, Mr President. The minister has been asked a very specific question in relation to whether or not the tender will be open to the private sector. That is the only question that has been asked in the final supplementary. The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong, I can't instruct the minister how to answer a question. It was quite specific. In my view, as long as he is talking about the tender process referred to in the question, that is being directly relevant. Senator Colbeck, please continue. Senator COLBECK: I will repeat for the benefit of those opposite that, just before they say it, doesn't make it so. We have never conceded, we have never agreed and we have never said that we wanted to privatise the assessment of aged-care services in Australia. The PRESIDENT: Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Keneally, on a point of order? Senator Keneally: My point of order is again on direct relevance. The minister is not answering the question he was asked. The question is very specific: will the minister give an ironclad guarantee that the ACAT tender will not be open to the private sector? The PRESIDENT: Senator Cormann, I'll take you on the point of order before I rule. Senator Cormann: Point of order. Senator Colbeck was clearly being directly relevant. He was again making the absolute same reassurance that he's made to Senator Hanson, which is entirely accurate. That is because Labor's accusations of privatisations are false. The PRESIDENT: On the point of order, I am not going to rule on whether or not someone is answering a question, in the sense that that is in the eye of the beholder too often, and there is a chance to debate it after question time. The minister was being directly relevant by addressing the question. If it is not in a way that the person asking the question prefers, there is an opportunity after question time to debate that. Senator Colbeck to continue. Senator COLBECK: Again, for the benefit of those opposite, we will work cooperatively with the states and territories to ensure that senior Australians get the assessment services that they need in a timely way to support their entry into the aged care system.