QandA: Tim Wilson rejects allegations the Coalition didn’t have COVID-19 plan for aged care

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson has rejected allegations on Monday’s QandA that the commonwealth didn’t have a COVID-19 plan for aged care.

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson has rejected allegations that the commonwealth didn’t have a COVID-19 plan for aged care, as ABC’s Q&A hears Australia’s “exhausted and burnt out” mental health workers are experiencing soaring demand for services.

Discussing the threat facing the disability sector, host Hamish McDonald referenced evidence from the ongoing royal commission, which heard that while a COVID-19 plan for people with disabilities had been developed, aged care had been neglected, leaving the sector underprepared.

However, Mr Wilson categorically rejected the assertion, saying the federal government had provided support and assistance “every step of the way”.

“This is an allegation. You can go back to March and you can find guidelines by the Department of Health to assist aged-care providers in managing these challenges. There clearly were things in place,” Mr Wilson said.

“At every point there has been an option the federal government has intervened to support and assist aged care providers, but it‘s a combination of factors that address it.”

The panel also discussed the significant issues facing “exhausted and burnt out” mental health clinicians and support workers. Royal Melbourne Hospital psychiatrist Dr Killian Ashe said workers were operating in a system which was “not fit for purpose” prior to the crisis.

“We have seen year-on-year a 25 per cent increase in demand across every breadth of our service. At this time we‘ve now seen a 25 per cent increase at the Royal Melbourne for example, just since March, across this pandemic period,” Dr Ashe said.

“I‘m seeing so many people coming who have never had to attend a mental health clinician before. And people who have been, a young person I saw who has been through unbelievable adversity and trauma through their lives to come to this point where this isolation, this uncertainty, this instability, is what’s driven that person to attend.”

In response to a question regarding the pathway forward if a COVID-19 vaccine didn’t eventuate, ACTU President Michelle O’Neil said the federal government needed to outline a plan for a national economic recovery, and called on the government to use public deficits to fund infrastructure.

“But this is the time we need the federal government to lead. It‘s really the moment where we have to recognise that other levers in the economy are severely damaged and will be for a long period of time. Consumer spending is going to be really depressed for long periods,” Ms O’Neil said.

“Because you can‘t rely on private enterprise to be the solution when they themselves are damaged. You need to have a government injecting funds using public money for public good so we can actually see a way through this that’s going to be good for workers but also for the businesses that they spend the money in, for our whole community and our economy.”

Victorian Labor senator Kimberley Kitching said the nation needed to reconsider the structure of the economy, and whether it could be recalibrated to shore up weaknesses exposed during the pandemic.

“So in the Victorian economy, it‘s pretty much a services-based economy. Do we need to start looking at reinvigorating a manufacturing sector again? What does that look like? How much government intervention should there be to create that?” Senator Kitching asked.

However, Mr Wilson, pointing to the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs, said any criticism that the federal government wasn’t doing enough was “frankly absurd”, as he foreshadowed further measures.

“This is going to be one we‘re going to work in partnership with least because the government has been responsible to protect public health, responsible for many of the measures that have harmed private enterprise,” Mr Wilson said.

“So it‘s going to be obviously a key and feature of the forthcoming budget in October as well as the budget I suspect in the new year.”

In addition, Mr Wilson dismissed Senator Kitching’s assertion that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had been completely accountable during the second wave of infections.

“It is important to make sure there‘s proper accountability on the state government. I take the issue with the idea that all the accountability is fine. It’s not,” Mr Wilson said.

“At a federal level we have a Senate committee chaired by a Labor member with cross-party representation. In Victoria, we have a Labor Party-chaired committee into a Labor government on their COVID-19 measures. And it‘s dominated by Labor members.”

While agreeing that appropriate reviews should take place, Australian Venue Co chief executive Paul Waterson said supporting the community during this difficult period should be the priority.

“I think now is not the time for post-mortems. We’re in the middle of a crisis and I sense a real fracturing in the community and that’s not a great place to be in,” Mr Waterson said.

“It sounds like there will be the appropriate reviews and people will be held accountable for decisions that were made but we need to focus on supporting business, supporting the teams and getting through this initial lockdown.”