Senator COLBECK (Tasmania—Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians and Minister for Youth and Sport) (14:05): All through the COVID-19 pandemic, the one thing that this government has made sure of is that any facility with a COVID-19 outbreak has had available PPE to appropriately deal with the virus. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator COLBECK: The Labor Party quite conveniently forgets that, as we entered this pandemic, there was a global shortage of PPE. The PRESIDENT: Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Wong, on a point of order? Senator Wong: My point of order is direct relevance. The comment to which the minister refers, the 'deplorable' comment, is a comment of the royal commission, not the Australian Labor Party. I'd ask him to address the royal commission's description of PPE availability as 'deplorable'—that is the question. The PRESIDENT: There are two matters. I was having trouble hearing Senator Colbeck's answer because there were interjections from both sides of the chamber. The minister was getting to the point of PPE as you rose to your feet. I'm going to let him continue, because I cannot instruct him how to answer a question. But I believe that his answer is directly relevant to the question asked. Senator Colbeck will continue. Senator COLBECK: It is actually a tragedy that not only do the Labor Party come into this place and misrepresent our comments but they misrepresent the comments of— The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Colbeck, please resume your seat. Senator Wong, on a point of order? Senator Wong: He is deliberately avoiding the question, Mr President. I ask the minister to return to the question. It is not directly relevant to speak about the Labor Party. He is being asked about his royal commission's 'deplorable' comments. The PRESIDENT: Senator Birmingham, on the point of order? Senator Birmingham: Senator Wong had begun her interjections on Senator Colbeck before he had even started speaking in response to that question, before he had even said a single additional word. Mr President, in your previous ruling, you did acknowledge it was hard to hear in the chamber and, if Senator Wong wants the minister to be able to address the question, then a little silence for him to do so would be appropriate. The PRESIDENT: Interjections are always disorderly; I remind all senators of that. The senator is being directly relevant if he is talking about PPE, but he had not concluded a point before both interjections and a point of order was raised. I need to hear him make this point before I can make any ruling on direct relevance. Senator COLBECK: As I was about to say, the Labor Party actually even misrepresents what the royal commission said, because what the royal commission said was that the practice of aged-care providers withholding PPE was 'deplorable'. It made no comment about what we said or did. We, at all times, made sure that aged-care providers had adequate supplies of PPE to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. (Time expired) Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order on my left. Order! Senator Watt, when I call you to order, the rule is to count to 10.