The Senate has agreed to motions condemning the Morrison Government for its plan to privatise aged care assessments two days in a row.

The Liberals’ sneaky plan to privatise aged care assessments was released just days before Christmas and is deeply concerning.

Scott Morrison has no plan to fix the crisis in Australia’s aged care system, but he does have a plan to privatise aged care assessments. This makes no sense.

The Senate motions follow the extraordinary intervention of the Aged Care Royal Commissioners in January who publicly corrected the Minister for Aged Care’s assertion that they supported his plan to privatise aged care assessments.

The Minister for Aged Care, Senator Richard Colbeck, falsely claimed that the privatisation plan was supported by the Royal Commissioners.

There is already an experienced, well-qualified and highly-trained workforce undertaking aged care assessments across the country.

The Morrison Government should come clean on why it would want to privatise these assessments and outsource this work.

It makes no sense to make this decision before the final report of the Aged Care Royal Commission is released in November.

When they should be focused on fixing the crisis in Australia’s aged care system, the Government’s obsession is outsourcing and privatisation.

This is just more aged care mismanagement from the Liberal Government.

It was recently revealed almost 30,000 older Australians sadly passed away in just two years while waiting for home care.

The Liberals have been asleep at the wheel for six years. There have been four different Ministers in that time and billions of dollars ripped out while Australia’s aged care system has lurched from one crisis to another.

Scott Morrison and the Government must do better to ensure older Australians get the quality aged care services they deserve now.