Anthony Albanese’s eight-point plan for aged care

Labor leader Anthony Albanese will set out an eight-point plan to rectify key problems in the aged-care sector in an address to the National Press Club.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Getty Images

Labor leader Anthony Albanese will set out an eight-point plan to rectify key problems in the aged-care sector in a set piece address to the National Press Club as he ramps up his political attack on Scott Morrison’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Albanese will declare the government is failing to protect older Australians or fix issues plaguing the embattled aged-care sector, straining under the impact of hundreds of coronavirus cases across facilities in Victoria.

Twenty-one of the 24 deaths recorded in the state on Wednesday were linked to aged care.

Labor’s key proposals include the introduction of minimum staffing levels, adequate supplies of personal protective equipment, better training for staff and infection control, as well as a better surge workforce strategy.

“Presiding over it all is a government that is failing to protect older Australians in the present and failing to protect the older Australians of the future,” Mr Albanese will say.

It comes as Mr Albanese and Labor MPs seized on the aged-care issue in question time on Wednesday, accusing the Prime Minister of making $1.7bn in cuts to aged care when he was treasurer in the Turnbull government.

“Did the Prime Minister‘s decision to cut $1.7 billion from aged care leave aged-care homes better or worse prepared for the pandemic?” the Opposition Leader asked.

“The Aged Care Royal Commission‘s interim report titled ‘Neglect’ revealed up to half of all older Australians in residential aged care are malnourished.

“They’re literally starving. Didn’t the Prime Minister’s decision to cut $1.7 billion from aged care leave frail and vulnerable older Australians worse off?”

But Mr Morrison fired back, declaring the aged-care budget had increased by $1bn a year since he had become leader.

He foreshadowed that spending would also go up in the October 6 federal budget.

Mr Morrison also reflected on his late father’s last days in care, and attacked Labor for politicising a “personal, sensitive” issue.

“I‘ve already addressed the misleading statements made by the opposition that they continue to assert, and I’ve already informed the House of the significant increases in investments that have been made by the government when it comes to aged care,” he told parliament.

“For those of us who have had to make decisions about putting our own family, our own parents, into aged care, we have known that, when we’ve done that, we are putting them into pre-palliative care.”

Mr Albanese will also use the address to recommend providing additional resources so the Aged Care Royal Commission can probe COVID-19’s impact on the sector without delaying the handing down of the final report.

He will criticise the government for not committing to increase the Aged Pension next month, warning that its superannuation policy will hurt seniors of the future.