The Government Has Been Accused of ‘Out-and-Out Lying’ Again. This Time, It’s About Aged Care.

The Morrison government has been accused of “lying” about its intentions to match Labor’s promise of having at least one nurse on duty, 24-hours a day, at every nursing home in Australia. 

Government documents show the commitment isn’t in its budget plans. 

The Labor party has put the issue of aged care, a federal responsibility that has become one of the more prominent stains on Morrison’s government, front and centre since the beginning of the election campaign. 

Under an Albanese government, aged care residents have been promised $456.1 million in extra funding over the next four years, which includes a commitment to have qualified nurses in aged care homes around the clock, seven days a week.

By contrast, the Morrison government had until Wednesday only committed to making nurses available for 16 hours a day. That changed, out of nowhere, when the Coalition decided to match the Labor promise. 

On Wednesday, the government’s Social Services Minister, Anne Ruston, took Sky News viewers into the weeds and claimed that the Morrison government was working on a realistic timeline for getting nurses into nursing homes but didn’t clarify what that timeline might look like. 

The unsubstantiated commitment ignited yet another aged care skirmish for the Morrison government, prompting Labor’s spokeswoman for aged care, Claire O’Neil, to accuse the Coalition of “out-and-out lying” to Australians and “pretending” the claim was a policy. 

“We should not allow government ministers to come on television in the middle of an election campaign and completely fib about what their policy is,” O’Neil said. “What I want the government to do is front up about their policies and defend them.”

In a statement to The Age, a government spokesperson argued the Coalition currently has plans in place to spend $3.9 billion on “introducing 16-hour nursing staff on site”, before a “transition towards 24-hour, seven-day-a-week care”.

The clash is just the latest in a series of slips for the Morrison government, which has been heavily criticised for its neglect of the aged care sector; its workers, and its residents, who, under the Morrison government, have reportedly been left to go hungry, or find maggots in their meals.

As a result of findings made by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the government committed to acting on two recommendations. 

The first was to force aged care homes to lift nurse and care worker to resident ratios, so people living in aged care homes could be guaranteed better quality of care. And the second was to require aged care homes to have at least one registered nurse on duty for 16 hours of the day. 

Morrison eventually obliged, and included funding for the extended nursing as part of a $17.7 billion package, but didn’t offer any mention to 24-hour care.

In his budget reply speech this year, Albanese moved to one-up the government, by announcing a $2.5 billion commitment to the aged sector if he wins at the election, which included 24-hour nursing and dramatic improvements to food, and other quality of life measures.

At the election campaign’s first debate in Brisbane on Wednesday night, Albanese doubled down on his promise to spent $2.5 billion on 24-hour nursing and a dramatic improvement of food and other quality of life measures.

“We want to make sure that every single dollar that goes in [to the aged care sector], we know where it’s going. It’s not going to profits for someone to buy a new Maserati, but going to better food, and better care,” Albanese said. 

“They’re literally starving. Now, in 2022, we need to do better than that.”

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