3rd Sep 2020, 12:30 PM – Senate Motions - Covid-19: Aged Care - Censures Minister

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by SA Senator Penny Wong (Labor), which means it passed. Motions like these don't make any legal changes on their own, but they are politically influential as they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the Australian Government funds and regulates residential aged care,

(ii) the Morrison Government failed to protect aged care residents from COVID-19 by ignoring:

(A) the interim report of the Aged Care Royal Commission,

(B) the warnings from experts and unions, and

(C) the warnings of Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House,

(iii) the Australian Government has not produced a COVID-19 plan for aged care,

(iv) more than 450 aged care residents have died from COVID-19, and

(v) the Aged Care Royal Commission has said that if the Australian Government had acted upon previous reviews of aged care the suffering of many people could have been avoided; and

(b) censures the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians for:

(i) failing to recall the most basic and tragic facts about aged care residents,

(ii) describing his management of aged care as a 'high water mark',

(iii) dismissing deaths as a 'function' of aged care, and

(iv) failing to take responsibility for the devastating crisis in the aged care sector, which has caused death, grief and untold trauma for vulnerable Australians and their families.