Federal Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck is going to be increasingly in the gun over the coming weeks and months as the COVID-19 situation in the Victorian aged care sector continues to deteriorate.
Indeed, News Corp’s Samantha Maiden predicted on Insiders yesterday that Colbeck would be targeted by Labor as a “weak link” when parliament resumes.
Australia’s political system often throws up elected representatives who end up being over-promoted beyond their skill set. Colbeck, a little-known Tasmanian senator, is a good example of that.
Like quite a few Tasmanian politicians (Andrew Wilkie, Jim Bacon and Brian Harradine being three other prominent examples), he wasn’t born there but grew up in Myrtleford in Victoria where he worked as an apprentice carpenter before eventually running his own business as a building estimator.
As a small business operator, he moved to Tasmania and joined the Liberal Party while rising to prominence as president of the Devonport Chamber of Commerce and a councillor on Devonport City Council. He was elected to the Senate at the 2001 election and served continuously from early 2002 until his defeat at the 2016 election — a 14-year stretch which included nine years in government and five years of opposition.
Colbeck’s parliamentary experience has spanned agriculture, fisheries, forestry, trade, investment, finance, water, science, tourism and international education — much of which is suitable for Tasmania and reflects his small business and employer/industry group background, but none of which suggests he understands the aged care sector or Australia’s health system.
Prior to last year’s federal election, all this experience had been at the assistant minister or parliamentary secretary level — besides briefly serving as minister for tourism and international education in the first Turnbull ministry, a reward for backing the coup against Abbott.
As a moderate Liberal, Colbeck has long been a factional opponent of the Tasmanian conservatives led by Eric Abetz and supported Malcolm Turnbull in all the leadership challenges before switching to Scott Morrison in the final ballot against Peter Dutton.
His battles with Abetz and Abbott saw him relegated to the unwinnable fifth position on the Liberal senate ticket in 2016 when the Liberals performed particularly poorly in Tasmania.
He lost his seat and then tried to make a living as a lobbyist, most notably joining Stephen Conroy at Responsible Wagering Australia, where he served as chairman, promoting the interests of big advertising foreign bookmakers like Sportsbet, Ladbrokes and BetEasy.
You are judged by the company you keep, and jumping into the bed with foreign gambling giants who prey on their addicted customers doesn’t instil a lot of confidence that he will be particularly caring when it comes to looking after aged care residents who are being poorly treated by for-profit nursing home operators.
On returning to the Senate in late 2017 after fellow Tasmanian and Senate president Stephen Parry was knocked out courtesy of his dual citizenship, Colbeck was initially left on the backbench. But once Morrison took over as prime minister Colbeck got the job as assistant minister for agriculture and water resources.
After various moderate forces strongly backed him against the Abetz Daleks in 2019, Colbeck was preselected top of the Tasmanian Liberal ticket at last year’s election. This 62-year-old Victorian will be serving Tasmanians until at least 2024.
After his surprise victory last year, Morrison appointed Colbeck as minister for sport, youth and aged care, although he is not in cabinet, which perhaps reflects how seriously the Coalition takes aged care.
His appointment to the sports portfolio raised eyebrows given his past role chairing the foreign bookmakers’ lobby group.
Anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello told Crikey: “Senator Colbeck should never have been appointed to the sports portfolio in 2019 given the obvious conflict of interest from being a former gambling industry lobbyist, particularly given how much his part of the gambling industry, the foreign bookmakers, relies on their deep ties with sport to make their large profits.”
In any case, the sport and youth parts of his portfolio will be taking a back seat as Colbeck navigates the unfolding aged care debacle in the period ahead.
One of his predecessors in the aged care portfolio, Kevin Andrews, once told me that John Howard appointed him aged care minister after Bronwyn Bishop’s kerosene baths fiasco with a specific brief to keep the portfolio out of the media.
Andrews did a good job of that and visited more than 500 nursing homes during his two-year stretch. Given his knowledge of the sector, Morrison could do worse than switching the uninspiring Colbeck out and reinstating Andrews, particularly given that he is on the ground in Melbourne. It’s not a good look for Colbeck to be regularly flying over Victoria when commuting from Tasmania to Canberra.
And it really is ridiculous that the aged care portfolio is not in cabinet. Another option might be to give it to Greg Hunt given the obvious synergies with the health portfolio.
Whatever happens, surely Morrison won’t stick with the status quo.
Is it time Australia had a new minister for aged care? And how do we fix the crisis enveloping the sector? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
Unfortunately Colbeck is typical of the mediocrities swimming in the very shallow LNP talent pool. Having to even consider throwing back to Andrews, who is old enough to be in a home not running them, demonstrates just how bereft of ability Morrison’s zombie ministry is.
His rug is old enough to vote..
As one of Kevin Andrews’s long suffering constituents, I never thought I would be defending him. It’s outrageous to say he belongs in an aged care home. After all, he’s only a few years older than I am!
I suppose Colbeck is “up FOR the job”. What you’re meaning to ask is whether he’s “up TO the job”.
Also not “…in the gun..” – the phrase is generally “…under the gun..”.
That’s the problem. Every gov’t wants mainly to keep aged care out of the media and limit the amount they spend on it, not “fix it”, whatever that means.
People seem to assume the problems with aged care could have been remedied between March and the latest outbreaks, but they are much deeper than that and will take years to put right. For example you can’t quickly get more and better qualified staff in the sector or find suitable replacements when staff become infected, and many places are old and just not designed to prevent the spread of infection. Aged care buildings are not designed like hospitals.
There is an accreditation system which is supposed to regulate the suitability of aged care facilities including their buildings. Just needs applying, same as staffing levels, training of staff, etc.
All very true, bj…and then there is the small matter of adequate funding to maintain acceptable standards in aged care. This government…and especially the current minister…hasn’t got a clue!
I see that the boss of COTA is calling for a Medicare type scheme to fund aged care…a suggestion I made in this forum last week. And it should be run completely by the government sector, where the covid19 cases are almost non-existent, even in this ‘disaster’ situation.
Food for thought!!
And it won’t be – applied, that is. The federal government is hostile to regulation, unless as it applies to poor people. This has been policy since Abbott became PM, and every public servant has been told they must develop “a culture of regulatory congestion busting.” In practice this means less regulation, without much heed to its effect on service quality..
“Just needs applying’ – noble words
Surely it’s the “promotion system” that is at the heart of this sort of problem – look a the list of “elected representatives who end up being over-promoted beyond their skill set” by Scotty From Marketing.
Colbeck in his short-comings is anything but ‘atypical’.
As for “promoting” ‘Ghoulie’ Andrews – the bloke Howard promoted to distract the electorate before an election – by persecuting Mohamed Haneef – to keep WorkChoices out of the head-lines?
Very funny.
Yes Klewso, I had a WTF moment when I read that suggestion about Andrews, but I doubt he’d want the job.
His entire current agenda is focused on retaining the pre-selection for this lower house seat of Menzies, with barbarians from the left and right of the Liberal party positioning themselves for a challenge. The last thing he’ll want is to be associated with the disaster that is aged care while he’s attempting to extend his almost 30 year reign sucking on the parliamentary teat.
While the COVID-19 epidemic has turned the focus to aged-care, it is mind-boggling that, with the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in full swing prior to last-year’s election, that Morrison couldn’t see that aged-care would need both direct representation in cabinet and a capable and knowledgeable minister in charge. Even before COVID, it was inevitable that the Royal Commission would present a torrent of case-studies of long waiting lists for aged care places, people dying while waiting, of care disproportionately available to the well-off and unacceptable quality control in the sector. When an incompetent fails at their job, it is not the incompetent to blame it is who put them in the role in the first place.
Good points – all of it.