Senator BILYK (Tasmania) (15:08): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians (Senator Colbeck)to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to COVID-19 in aged care. I've got a mum who's 90 years old. She had a birthday on 8 August. Thankfully, she's in relatively good health, considering her age, and she lives independently, because I'm telling you I would move hell and high water if she had to go into an aged-care facility. I would not be having that, because I do not have any confidence in what the government do in aged care. And it's not just in relation to COVID-19, as bad as that has been, as embarrassing as that has been, and as much as that has shown what a lazy government we have and that they don't actually have any respect for our elders. They don't care. They don't care about what happens to older Australians. Aged care isn't even in cabinet. Cabinet hasn't even been briefed. As far as I'm concerned, that tells us a whole lot about what this government thinks and how they treat elderly Australians. I don't trust that this minister has the competence to manage the COVID-19 outbreak, let alone the competence to run the system more generally. This is a minister who can't answer basic questions about COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care. He couldn't tell the COVID-19 Senate committee how many people had died in aged care, and he stumbled over this figure when responding to me in question time on Monday. He couldn't say whether he had briefed the federal cabinet on the interim report of the aged-care royal commission. Yesterday he scurried from the Senate while Labor senators responded to his weak defence of the government's record on aged care. Today, he couldn't tell us how much of the $205 million committed in May for staffing, training and PPE was actually spent on those items. He couldn't tell us what conditions were imposed on the spending of that money. This is not a minister that is on top of his game. This is the most critical issue for Australia in the last 100 years. It's not like it's just a little one-off episode where someone caught a disease. This is affecting the whole of the nation of Australia. It has put people out of work. It has stopped children going to school. It has put cities and regions into lockdown. He is the minister responsible for aged care and he can't answer these basic questions. I will tell you what we can do. Earlier today, Mr Albanese gave a speech at the National Press Club. Senator Farrell: It was a very good speech. Senator BILYK: It was a very good speech, Senator Farrell; I agree. As this government has absolutely no idea how to deal with any of the issues in aged care, the Labor Party will once again make some suggestions for them on what they can do. When Mr Albanese spoke in the National Press Club, he pointed out that in the absence of a government plan there are eight points the government could consider. This is once again Labor having to do the work of the government because they are so inept and incompetent that they can't actually work out what they need to do. What did Mr Albanese suggest? He suggested pretty basic stuff: minimum staffing levels in residential aged care; reducing the home-care package waiting list so more people can stay in their homes—that reminds me about a survey which showed that Australians have lost confidence in the system under this government. A survey by Fifth Dimension found that 54 per cent of people with family members in aged care are thinking of moving their loved ones into their own homes. This survey was conducted between 31 July and 3 August, after the deadly outbreak of coronavirus in nursing homes in Sydney and Melbourne. Of these, one-third are considering doing that permanently. That might actually solve a bit of the problem for the aged-care facilities, but it opens up a whole new problem for the government because I think they've got over 130,000 people on the waiting list for home-care packages. If these people have moved out, then a hell of a lot more people will be waiting for home-care packages. The third point that Mr Albanese talked about was ensuring transparency and accountability of funding to support high-quality care. I've got to say— (Time expired)