The fallout from the Royal Commission’s COVID report starts.
Appearing on Nine’s Today show, the Home Affairs Minister has pledged that the Federal Government will double down on operators that are not providing quality care as it looks to implement the six recommendations from the Commissioners’ special report released on Thursday.
Mr Dutton butted heads with Labor’s Deputy leader Richard Marles – suggesting that the Government’s response to the COVID outbreaks in aged care dated back to when Labor was in power.
Asked if the Government was sorry for the current situation, he said:
“Everyone is sorry for the situation in aged care and it has been that way for a long time and in fact, it was one of the first acts that Scott Morrison did when he came into the leadership of the government, he called for this Royal Commission because nobody was happy with the band-aids that had been applied for well over a decade or two.”
“There are a vast majority of good operators but we need to apply pressure to those not suitable in the industry to exit and provide additional support for those delivering a good service.”
“The vast majority of aged care providers are good people, doing the right thing, providing a good service, but where they are not, we want to come down hard on those people.”
But Mr Marles pointed to the Morrison Government’s failure to take leadership of the sector.
“More needs to be done but the starting point is for the Commonwealth to take responsibility,” he said.
“The Commonwealth is actually the body or the tier of government which is responsible for this. This is a real indictment on them. The word that’s used is deplorable.”
Mr Dutton hit back: “Richard, you were in government. You did nothing about it.”
Despite his attempts to shift the blame, the Minister was firm that change is coming and this will be reflected in both Tuesday’s Budget and the Government’s response to the Royal Commission’s Final Report in February.
“There is a lot more work to be done and you will see that,” Mr Dutton said.
“In next year’s budget there is a big change coming in aged care.”
“Since COVID started we put $1.6 billion in. But it is not about money, it is about cultural change.”
That suggests that the Government won’t be pouring billions into the sector – rather, funding will be directed towards greater transparency and accountability.
We will find out on Tuesday.
