QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (15:25): The phrase, 'the people who built this country'—it's interesting that was used today, yet again trying to rewrite history around migration and the levels of migration that we inherited when we came to government. They forget very conveniently that they were in government for 10 years. Well, the Australian people have not forgotten that.

But I don't want to talk about migration. My colleague, I think, rebutted the nonsense that's been spruiked not only in this chamber today, in the other place, but also through the media. I want to take the question in relation to health and private health insurance.

It's all very catchy to use the word 'tax'. The reality is the government has decided that, in the interest of older Australians and particularly those in aged care, where the numbers are continuing to grow, the additional benefits that some older Australians get with private health insurance should be brought back to the same level as that of everyone else who qualifies for that support.

But it's important to note, in the 10 years that they were in government, what we saw them do and contribute to older Australians. For those who were in aged care, in residential aged care, and those who were still living at home waiting for support what we saw was our Liberal-National government call a royal commission into their own failings. In the 10 years that they were in government, they had six failed ministers in those 10 years.

And what happened? They had to call a royal commission into their own failings. What was that royal commission's finding?

It was a report titled Neglect. Older Australians in residential care—these are the same people who built the country—were fed little party pies and sausage rolls. How many times?

How many older Australians were found to have been dehydrated and starving? How many older Australians died during the pandemic because aged-care workers' wages were so low that they had to go from one aged-care facility to another, transferring the pandemic and the disease—and older Australians were dying. When you come into this chamber and you use the phrases 'the old people', and 'the people who built this country', you ought to know the history of what your government did and the neglect that they have demonstrated in aged care alone.

That's without the money that was ripped out when they used aged care as a cash cow, as a teller machine. And what about when Mr Abbott, the former prime minister and head of the Liberal government, gutted health by $1 billion? Then we have the Tasmanian senator talking about the backlog of people in the hospitals in Tasmania.

What about the fact that it's a Liberal state government, and the Launceston General Hospital has twice in less than two weeks said, 'No. Unless you're critical and you're about to die, we can't take you'? That is the Liberals looking after older Australians.

That is the Liberals looking after Australians' health. No thank you! (Time expired)