Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (10:18): Aged care is the most difficult area of our life. It goes from wonderful care to incontinence pads. I ask the question then: when the small community aged-care provider Hillview, who asked for 14 beds worth approximately $917,000, were given nil in the last aged-care round, why is it that Lendlease were given 756 beds at $65,500 each, worth $41,958,000, when they actually do not deliver aged care? They are an ASX-listed construction company. Signature Care or Innovative Care, that may be called ICL Operations or ICL Operations Two, since 2013 have been given $137,026,000 towards aged-care beds.
They do not deliver aged care, to my knowledge—I could be enlightened on that—whereas Hillview at Bunyip, which needs 14 beds, had nil allocation.
I asked Hillview to work closely with the department for 12 months to make sure that their application was correct and appropriate. I found out, after asking them yesterday to give me the names they are working with, that, 'Oh, no, we only get to talk to an 1800 number.' An 1800 number—that is all they are allowed to talk to in our department. Do you think that Lendlease, Signature Care or Innovative Care, or ICL Operations or ICL Operations Two, who were given $137 million of public money—our money, delivered from the public sector to the private sector for aged-care beds, which are messy, to say the least, yet have wonderful care—would not have a name in the department they are dealing with? Lendlease, who sold out of their aged-care beds some years ago because it was not their core product and who have now drifted back into the market because they may need beds, get 756 beds, and Hillview aged care at Bunyip, who need 14 beds, get nil.
This is a very short address—we have three minutes—but I have just started. Who is it that is deciding on these beds? Who is it that leaves people like Hillview—the tiny people in Australia, the little people who deliver the service and get into the messy part of aged care—on the starting blocks with nowhere to go compared to Lendlease? Do Lendlease deal with incontinence pads? Do Signature Care deal with incontinence pads? It is messy when we come into this world; it is messy when we go out of this world. It is appropriate that this government spends its time looking at how it has allocated this money and if it is appropriate.
