Minutes before Scott Morrison stepped up to speak at Sydney’s Kirribilli House on Monday, public servants quietly delivered dozens of boxes to an unremarkable hallway on the second floor of federal Parliament.

Inside were thousands of pages making up the eight-volume final report of the royal commission into the nation’s troubled aged care sector, the result of more than two years of work. Journalists scrambled to read the brief of evidence – detailing poor standards, myriad challenges, funding gaps, exploding demand and gut-wrenching neglect.