FOI request over aged care’s COVID-19 cost rejected

The Department of Health has refused to release a report it commissioned into the financial impact of COVID-19 on the aged care sector.

Health Minister Greg Hunt. Picture: AAP

The Department of Health has refused to release a report it commissioned into the financial impact of COVID-19 on the aged-care sector, declaring “unauthorised disclosure of information would cause detriment” to those who provided the information “through financial loss and embarrassment”.

The department’s assistant secretary, Nigel Murray, refused a Freedom of Information request lodged by The Australian in June that asked for a report conducted by advisory firm StewartBrown to be made publicly available.

He said the information could impact “the provider’s ability to obtain similar work”.

It comes as the aged-care sector was found to account for more than half of the 1696 active cases recorded in Victoria on Tuesday.

Joseph Ibrahim, head of the health law and ageing research unit at Monash University, said it was “farcical” that the report was not being released.

“I would have thought we had a right to know what the costs were, and how money is being spent,” he said. “There are ways of releasing information that aren’t detrimental to an individual.”

Leading Age Services Australia chief Sean Rooney also called for the report’s release, saying independent, detailed costs about the reality of dealing with COVID-19 was valuable information for the public, aged-care providers and the government.

Patricia Sparrow, chief executive of Aged and Community Services Australia, said it was vital “the government releases reliable, up-to-date data on the additional costs to aged-care providers of handling the crisis (to) provide more informative data to plan and support the sector in protecting older people”.