Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:45): I move: That the Senate take note of the statement. Maybe you should stay and listen to what the Senate has to say, Minister Colbeck. As of yesterday there were 353 Australians in residential aged care who had died from COVID-19, and today it's more than 360. It is a disgrace that this minister leaves the chamber when the parliament is taking note of his statement. I hope all Australian see how he just turned his back on his accountability and responsibility in this parliament and did not have the honour and principle to stay and listen. There were 353 dead as of yesterday, 360 dead as of today and more than 1,100 active cases. These numbers tell a tragic story. They are not just numbers. Behind each of these is a story of heartache, grief and trauma experienced by the families, children, grandchildren, siblings and friends of each and every one of these older Australians who has died. Now, it is true: we are in the grips of a global pandemic. And there are some who would suggest, like the government, these deaths are unavoidable. But we would be betraying our duty if we blindly accepted that argument. We would be blindly betraying our duty to the more than 360 Australians who have died and their loved ones, we would be betraying our duty to the 200,000 Australians in aged care and we would be betraying our duty to those who put themselves at risk every day to care for them. You see, this was avoidable. It was foreseeable and it was anticipated. Senator Colbeck said today that this has been the government's highest priority. That is demonstrably untrue. You see, Senator Colbeck was warned. He knew aged care was in crisis before COVID hit. Just as they had been warned before the bushfires last summer, this Morrison government has had warning after warning after warning on aged care. There was the interim report of the royal commission, entitled Neglect; the warnings from experts and from unions representing workers in aged-care homes; the tragic events at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House earlier this year; the warnings from his own backbenchers; and the lessons from his own government's report in March and in June. So, just as in the bushfires, the failure to act on these warnings—that minister's failure, this government's failure—has left devastating consequences for Australians. Instead of acting on these warnings, Senator Colbeck comes into this place and denies the premise of almost every question. He comes into this place and he claims to have done his job by holding a webinar and doing some mail-outs. Worse still, he comes into this place and talks about the Morrison government's performance as a high watermark—a high-water mark! What that demonstrates is how profoundly amoral, how profoundly dishonourable the heart of this government is, and what it reveals is this government's continued preference for self-congratulation over action under Scott Morrison. It's the arrogance and hubris that the counsel assisting the royal commission spoke of. It is dishonourable and it is unprincipled. This minister abdicates responsibility, and the cost of his failure is borne by hundreds of grieving Australian families who are still trying to come to terms with immeasurable tragedy. But there is one notable action this government has taken in relation to aged care and that is to defund it. As Treasurer, Mr Morrison cut almost $2 billion from the aged-care budget, and the results of that action, the consequences, are being seen today. In fact, it was one of their own, Mr Broadbent, who said it was a disaster waiting to happen. He went on to say his warnings, too, were 'ignored completely'. Tragically, all the other warnings that the Morrison government has received were also ignored completely. The royal commission heard this: … in the crucial months between the Newmarch House outbreak in April and mid-June a degree of self-congratulation and even hubris was displayed by the Commonwealth Government. The government was too business with boasting, too busy making announcements—just as Mr Morrison still is this week—to actually care that their job was not done. It's obvious that they sat on the reports, because those reports made clear the consequences of government action, or failure to act, and made clear the consequences of the government's actions to cut nearly $2 billion from aged care. Every day this week, before and after his disastrous committee performance, Australians have seen the horrifying death toll climb, and that is a consequence of budget cuts. It is a consequence of ignored warnings, and it is a consequence of incompetence by this government and, specifically, this minister. All of us have heard harrowing stories of severe neglect. Brendan from Victoria, whom we spoke about yesterday, said his 94-year-old mother, removed from her room after testing positive for COVID-19, was found not to have been showered for four days due to staffing shortages. Elizabeth, also from Victoria, said hospital doctors found her mother also had a secondary chest infection and a UTI, in addition to COVID, and she had been left in soiled nappies for hours—on many occasions, for the whole day. These are the people we are supposed to be representing in this place today. These are the people who need a voice. This minister seeks today to dismiss this debate as political. Well, I have a human question of my fellow senators, a question for all of you: would any of you want your loved ones to be in Senator Colbeck's care? When we look at Senator Colbeck's performance in the Senate, when we look at his performance in the Senate select committee, when we look at his performance as a minister, that is the question. Would you trust your parents, your grandparents, your aunts or uncles, your brothers or sisters, your wives or husbands to Senator Colbeck's care? If not, why would you expect other Australians to trust their loved ones to his care? Why would you accept a Prime Minister forcing Australians to put their elderly loved ones into Senator Colbeck's care? It is that's simple. If you wouldn't want him to be in charge of the care of your loved one, why do you expect others to want that? We know this Prime Minister. Although he is too stubborn to sack Senator Colbeck, he knows he can't fix this mess. We know that because just this week the Prime Minister cut Senator Colbeck out of the emergency response decision-making. Consider that for a minute. Mr Morrison has so little confidence in this minister that he's taken him out of the decision-making process. So I say to this government: if even Mr Morrison knows that Senator Richard Colbeck isn't up to the job, why should any of us expect Australians to believe that he is? The fact is that Senator Richard Colbeck has lost the confidence of the parliament, he has lost the confidence of the public, and he has to go. Senator KENEALLY: This week—today, even—we have heard the aged-care minister, Senator Richard Colbeck, gloating about how 97 per cent of facilities in this country haven't had a COVID outbreak. Every time I hear the government gloat about their performance, I think of the pain that must be inflicted upon the family members of those who have died in residential aged care of COVID-19—the daughter who lost a father, the son who lost a mother, the grandchildren asking what happened to nan and pop? The idea that the government got it right, that they have a high-water mark 97 per cent of the time, would be cold comfort to those 353 families who have lost a loved one in residential aged care to coronavirus and to those over 1,100 families who right now have a family member with an active coronavirus case in residential aged care. Each one of those numbers is a real person. Each one of those people is loved. I want to share a story. Donna from Clifton Springs, near Geelong in Victoria, shared her pain. She lost her father, Patrick, to COVID-19 on Monday a week ago. He caught COVID-19 in the aged-care facility. Donna wrote: 'On the news I watched with disgust as the Prime Minister talked about aged care. For him to say 97 per cent of the time we have got it right, along with Richard Colbeck's complete lack of care and concern for what has happened, is a complete slap in the face to families like mine who have been affected by this tragedy. Dad was 90 but was in good health. He was an amazing man who loved his family dearly and who could answer more questions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? than you or I. He did not deserve to die the way he did. I believe together we can all help to implement change in the industry, such as mandatory infection control for all staff, so this does not happen again. Dad died an unnecessary death and I don't want that to be in vain.' One of the saddest parts of Donna's story is that when she asked her father if he wanted to come live with her at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, he said, 'No, I'm safe in here.' People like Donna's father, Patrick, entered aged care to be looked after and cared for in their older years. At the time Donna contacted my office her father was one of 107 cases in that aged-care facility alone. All those people, the thousands of people in aged care across Australia, and their loved ones deserve a government that's got a plan to keep them safe. Instead, they have a government that has let them down. My heart breaks for the people across Australia who have lost loved ones in aged care to COVID-19. Our thoughts are with all the families dealing with grief and loss, particularly people in Victoria, whose grief would be compounded by the lockdown. In question time yesterday, when asked about his handling of this crisis, the aged-care minister rejected the premise or the assertion in the question no less than eight times. The Prime Minister even gloated in his party room this week about how his government handled the COVID aged-care crisis. What type of person, let alone a Prime Minister, gloats when families are losing loved ones? What type of Prime Minister flippantly dismisses questions? What type of minister comes into the Senate and dismisses questions outright? Is the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians unable to answer these questions because the answers are so bad or because he is so incompetent? When it comes to aged care the federal government is in charge. They fund aged care, they regulate aged care, they have the legislation that determines the quality of aged care. No matter how much the government or Mr Morrison might claim the responsibility is shared, they are responsible for aged care. The buck stops with the Prime Minister. Instead of treating this global pandemic of a highly contagious disease particularly affecting older people with the seriousness that it deserves, the Morrison government has failed. Mr Morrison left Senator Colbeck in charge of aged care. He is an incompetent junior minister who is in over his head. He is a minister who said this week that we are 'extremely fortunate'—these are his words—in how COVID has been handled in residential aged care. He said Australia is in 'a relatively good position' and the government had done reasonably well. Senator Colbeck is a minister who hasn't even briefed his cabinet about the crisis in aged care. He hasn't even briefed the national cabinet about the crisis in aged care. This is a minister who can't remember, or didn't bother to learn, how many people had died in residential aged care when he appeared before the Senate COVID committee. The Morrison government failed to have a competent minister and failed to have a plan for the COVID-19 crisis unfolding on their watch. Evidence heard at the royal commission into aged care has confirmed that there was no plan. This week, royal commissioners stated that 'independent measurement and public reporting is essential for the good operation of the aged-care system'. The royal commission said: It is unacceptable that in 2020 the aged care system is still without this. Had the Australian Government acted upon previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided. That's the royal commission saying that the government's failure to have a plan has led to the suffering of older Australians in their care. The Prime Minister and his aged-care minister have failed to act. They've failed to equip the aged-care workforce with the training and equipment that they need to protect older Australians. Elizabeth from Williamstown, Victoria, contacted my office and shared her story. It's the one Senator Wong alluded to. I'd like to share Elizabeth's words with the chamber. This is about her mother, who contracted COVID-19 in aged care: 'The residents had been kept in their rooms 24 hours a day without fresh air or mobility. My mother was asking me to tell them to give her pills for her to die today. When she went to hospital with COVID symptoms, they found she also had a secondary infection in her chest and a UTI. She has been left in soiled nappies for hours on end and on many occasions for a whole day. I feel sorry for the staff, they are so under-resourced, and the manager is happy that I am complaining, saying, "You can be my voice."' What kind of system is it where it's the children of desperately ill people—who want to die rather than stay in the aged-care system run by the Morrison government—that the staff are relying on to speak up for them? That's because the government haven't listened. They haven't listed to the frontline workers, they haven't listened to the Health Services Union and they haven't listened to the aged-care royal commission. These stories are hard to hear. I acknowledge that. Minister Colbeck clearly feels uncomfortable—so uncomfortable he had to leave the chamber and not hear these stories. Well, he should feel uncomfortable. This is happening on his watch during his time as the minister. He is responsible. Minister Colbeck is overseeing a system where older Australians are being left soiled for days on end. Minister Colbeck needs to own the fact that, as the Neglect report found, older Australians are going malnourished in residential aged care. They've been left with maggots in their mouths and ants in their open wounds. The aged-care system is broken and it needs to be fixed, and if Minister Colbeck can't do that they need to get a minister in there who can. They need to do it and they need to do it now. We've got dark days ahead—Victoria remains in lockdown—to get the spread of COVID-19 under control. Sadly, we are going to see more people die in residential aged care. My heart breaks for them, for their families and for the workers in aged care who entered their profession to protect and to care for older Australians. Until we have a vaccine for COVID-19, we must be doing everything we can to protect aged-care residents. What is unfolding across Australia's aged-care system is tragic. It is devastatingly sad. But the saddest thing of all is that all of this was preventable, if only the Morrison government had listened and acted, and had a plan to protect some of our most precious and vulnerable citizens in residential aged care.