SUBJECTS: Labor calls for resignation of Richard Colbeck; aged care crisis; Morrison Government’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic; ATAGI; TGA processes; cost of living; text messages concerning Scott Morrison; Federal election.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thanks for joining me. Today, I am angry. I am angry because I have spoken to the families of aged care residents who have had enough.
 
Richard Colbeck must resign today. If Richard Colbeck does not resign today, the Prime Minister should sack him. He is simply incapable of fulfilling the task of looking after the interests of old, vulnerable Australians. What we have is a circumstance whereby these Australians have helped to build this country. They deserve dignity and they deserve respect. Not the contempt that we get from a Minister who, having avoided appearing before a committee inquiry all year up until yesterday, went before that inquiry and said that it was working ‘exceptionally well’. Went before the inquiry and said that there was not a crisis in aged care. And today, what we have, remarkably, is an announcement that they are going to have a taskforce, they are going to ask a few people in the Department to look at the data. They are not going to act. That is what they are going to do.
 
Well, here is some data. 566 deaths since January 1. Double the number of deaths that occurred throughout 2021 in aged care. 15,000 residents and 17,000 aged care workers being infected with COVID. One quarter of shifts not being filled. 80,000 aged care residents who have not received booster shots. Aged care residents who are missing out on showering, who are missing out on food and water, who are not having their wounds tended to.
 
This is a crisis. And it is a crisis on this Government's watch in the wake of a Royal Commission that described the aged care sector in one word, ‘Neglect’. Well, we have had ongoing neglect from this Government. They knew that aged care residents were particularly vulnerable. And yet, we have aged care workers who still cannot get access to rapid antigen tests. We have aged care residents who are confused, who are locked in their rooms, who are not able to see their loved ones. We have the loved ones of these residents who are despairing, who are upset, who are fraught as a result of not being able to see their mum or dad, or their granddad or grandmother, or their uncle or aunt, or just their mate.
 
This is not good enough. And we have an ongoing approach by this Government that is characterised by complacency and characterised by always acting too little, too late. And then we had the Prime Minister 's grand announcement at the National Press Club of two one-off payments of up to $400 for aged care workers as a retention bonus. One of which is to be granted in March and one just about handed out with the ballot papers at the election in May. A cynical exercise from a Government that does not even seem to understand the fact, which is that most people in the aged care workforce, they are part-time, they are casual, and they are getting apart pro-rata rate. They are not even getting the figure that the Government announced. And, at best if you are a full-time worker, it is about $1 an hour as a result of the payment been made.
 
The problem with this Government is that if you do not acknowledge that there is a problem, you have no chance of finding a solution. But the solutions are there in the Aged Care Royal Commission. Older Australians deserve better. And their nurses and carers deserve better as well. They used to call these facilities nursing homes for a reason. Because nurses worked there. The Aged Care Royal Commission, and I called for it in my Budget Reply, called for a nurse, a registered nurse, to be on-call 24 hours a day in every nursing home. A nurse should be on-call in every nursing home. That is pretty fundamental to the whole concept of care.
 
What's more, this Government continues to refuse to put in a submission to the fair work commission to increase the wages and conditions of the aged care workforce. Even though they know that this is causing a massive problem of retention of workers that a one-off payment certainly won't solve it. This is a Government that is incompetent. It is a Government that is out of touch. And it is a Government that should be out of time come the next election.
 
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, you are calling for the resignation of a Minister at a time when you admit that the sector is in total crisis. Isn’t it a problem to ask someone else to come up into the portfolio? Wouldn’t it be better for the current Minister to fix the problem? And secondly, the Aged Care Royal Commission found it was a systemic issue that led back to Labor governments as well. What share of the blame does your side of politics take here?
 
ALBANESE: This Government has been in office for almost a decade. They are shooting for a second decade in office. The entire Government response that it is Labor’s responsibility for something when we have not been in office since 2013 is a big call. And can I say that in regard to the Minister and him being replaced and the implication that you need to skill someone new up, the problem with that statement is that this Minister does not have any skills and he is not doing his job. He is absent. He is absent. We actually need a Minister who will take responsibility. This Minister will not take responsibility. And when he does front up to a committee hearing yesterday, has refused to acknowledge that there is a crisis, has refused to acknowledge the problems that are there. And the context of this is events such as Mike Baird, the former Liberal Premier of New South Wales, calling for the army to be brought in to make beds and to look after fundamental tasks in the aged care sector because this crisis has just been building and building.
 
JOURNALIST: Your solution includes more nursing staff. We know there is a shortage of nursing staff. Where are you going to find these people at the last minute? It does take a long time to train people as nurses.
 
ALBANESE: Of course, it does. But that is why you need planning and a commitment to do it.
 
JOURNALIST: But that sounds like a long-term thing, not something you can solve tomorrow, doesn’t it?
 
ALBANESE: You cannot find a nurse tomorrow. That is the truth. Because this Government have failed in this area. But they don't even have a commitment of putting a nurse in every nursing home. That is something I called for last May in my Budget Reply. It is something the Royal Commission has called for as well. It is something that was mentioned in the interim report of the Royal Commission. The truth is that this Government continues to act with the word that summed up the aged care sector in the interim report of the Royal Commission. Neglect. This Minister is not doing his job. And the Prime Minister continues to say it is all okay in the aged care sector. It is not.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you say that aged care workers to have a 25 per cent pay rise? Do you agree with that figure?
 
ALBANESE: I agree that there needs to be an increase in pay and conditions of aged care workers. That is up to the Fair Work Commission what that figure should be. But the Government should make a submission. When the social and community services had an inquiry through the Commission into an increase in their salary, the then Federal Labor Government made a submission saying they supported an increase in wages.
 
JOURNALIST: Will Labor make a submission? What would that submission say?
 
ALBANESE: If we were the Government, we would make a submission. Governments make submission. We do not make submissions as Opposition. But if we were the Government, and if we formed Government, we would make a submission supporting an increase.
 
JOURNALIST: Wage changes take time. Training nurses take time. What is the practical thing you would implement immediately to try and relieve the pressure?
 
ALBANESE: Immediately, we would act. Immediately, the first thing we would do is acknowledge the problems that are there. We would make sure that booster shots are available, we would make sure that rapid antigen tests were available, we would make sure that PPE equipment was available for people in the aged care sector. We would work with the sector. We would listen to what residents and workers and the aged care sector was saying, and work with them. Not have this approach that this Government has of, ‘She’ll be right, mate’. The problem is, this Government have been in office for almost a decade. They have had a circumstance whereby we are now in the third year of this pandemic. They cannot say they have not had time to prepare. One of the circumstances which Australia has found itself in throughout this pandemic is, because it began in other parts of the world, we have had an opportunity to learn from that experience. And we know that older people are particularly vulnerable to COVID. And that is why we have known what was coming, in some circumstances, in terms of looking at overseas experience. So, for example, rapid antigen tests were approved much earlier. Supply was got under leadership from governments. And that was made available to the workforce. This Government have failed to learn any of the lessons from the pandemic, which is why they keep committing mistakes.
 
JOURNALIST: You have spoken recently about the need for an Australian-based rapid antigen test to be made available locally. Would you be prepared to go around the TGA, or try to overrule them if you were in power, to allow that to happen?
 
ALBANESE: I respect the TGA processes. The problem here though is the Federal Government have failed to show leadership. The Federal Government have been complacent. They said that the issue of the rollout of the vaccine was not a race and they have said, in spite of their own rhetoric, they have been slow to act when it comes to rapid antigen tests. They had put in their first tender for rapid antigen test in January. I was at a manufacturer in Melbourne in Box Hill on Monday. They produced rapid antigen tests that they are manufacturing in Florida because they have got support from US Government that they simply do not have here from the Australian Government.
 
JOURNALIST: Professor Paul Kelly has announced a new taskforce to collect further information about people who have died from COVID. Is this too little, too late?
 
ALBANESE: This is just an extraordinary response. Is the suggestion the Department was not looking at those issues that they had to set up a taskforce? Surely, they were looking at these issues. And this is a non-announcement. The idea that you could have, as you have had, 566 deaths since the 1 January in aged care, and the Department would not be looking at those circumstances, is extraordinary. The fact is that this, I am sure, would be standard course. And it is not an announcement. An announcement would be the Government saying that they are going to take serious action. Instead, what we have is a Minister who says there is no crisis, and a Government that says bureaucrats are going to collect data. That is the data that is out there. What are they doing about the immediate crisis that is there?
 
JOURNALIST: With regard to rapid antigen kits, you wouldn’t go around the TGA is what I understood your answer to be. You respect their decision. So why are you attacking the Government when it is the medical authorities that have concerns about these kits?
 
ALBANESE: This Government have been complacent. This Government have been slow. This Government have refused to provide rapid antigen tests to workers. What they say is that, if you are in some sectors, then they will provide it. But there are a whole range of workers that have been unable to deal, including in the aged care sector, who have not been given enough equipment and not enough support. They say that concession card holders should receive rapid antigen tests for free. But when pensioners go to their local pharmacies and see a pile of tests being made available for sale with a price on them, they are told, ‘They are not the free ones, they are not available, the free ones’. That is happening right now. This Government said they would get available to concession cardholders, but then told pharmacists, after the event, that they had to go out and find the rapid antigen tests themselves. This Government put in its first tender for RATs in January, at a time when we know it was easier to catch COVID that it was to catch a rapid antigen test. The truth is that so many Australians are simply unable to receive, or buy, or find a rapid antigen test. We know it is the case. And this Government continued to be complacent about their responsibilities. Because throughout this pandemic, this Prime Minister, who said three summers ago that he did not hold the hose, two summers ago was saying that it was not a race, and now, this summer, has not accepted responsibility for ensuring that rapid antigen tests are available, for ensuring that he does his job. At the Press Club this week, the Prime Minister, on more than a dozen occasions, found reason to blame someone else or to pass off responsibility for what is his job.
 
JOURNALIST: In terms of the campaign process, are you expecting to face Scott Morrison in the upcoming election? And do you share the view, allegedly, of Gladys Berejiklian that he is a ‘horrible, horrible person’?
 
ALBANESE: Gladys Berejiklian's comments are they on the record for all to see. And that is a judgement of a NSW Premier, who, at the time, was fighting hard. I respect the work that she did during the bushfire crisis. I have said that publicly and privately at the time. But also, we have a circumstance whereby Australians and older Australians are paying the price for the disunity in this Government.
 
ALBANESE: I do not care that the Liberals do not like each other. I don't care that the Nationals do not like each other, and the Liberals do not like the Nationals. What I care about is the fact there are real-world consequences as a result of the disunity. Of the fact that this Government is focused on itself and its disunity, older Australians are not being looked after. This Government is not functional. It is not competent. Because they are too obsessed with attacking each other and fighting each other. And the most damning statement in those text messages is Gladys Berejiklian’s statement that Scott Morrison, at the height of the bushfire crisis, was more concerned about politics than he was about people. And this was at a devastating time for people at the height of the bushfire crisis. That to me is the most damning statement in those text messaging.
 
JOURNALIST: ATAGI is looking to change the definition of fully vaccinated to three doses. Would you support such a move?
 
ALBANESE: Certainly, if ATAGI came up with that. It is obvious that a booster shot is a very important for keeping people safe. And so, I would expect that this would happen. It is a decision for ATAGI to make. But I would be surprised if it does not happen. Because we know that a booster shot is very important. And I take this opportunity to encourage anyone who is eligible for a booster to get it done. And one of the reasons why we are so far behind in our rollout of boosters is because we were so far behind in our rollout of the vaccine.
 
JOURNALIST: Are you now thinking about shaping a campaign that you might be facing someone other than Scott Morrison?
 
ALBANESE: The Liberal Party is in chaos. That is there for all to see. They cannot agree on candidates, they cannot agree each other. They spend a lot of time texting about who they don't like and how much they don't like them. We have seen some of that information there. As you walk around Parliament House, you don't have to travel very far to find people who will tell you about Scott Morrison's character. He leads a very centralised Government where decision-making is all centred on his office. He is interested, very much, in the politics of every issue, rather than just doing his job. One of the things I find remarkable, and I say this in February 2022, it is now a number of months since Scott Morrison, before he travelled to Queensland, said that he was in campaign mode. If he is in campaign mode, he should call the election. Because what we have is a failure to govern. And older Australians are really suffering as a direct result. Thanks very much.
 
ENDS