National fights effort to lift lid on aged care cuts

by Sue Kedgley

What a cheek John Carter has, telling Grey Power that they shouldn’t be collaborating with the Labour/Green investigation into the state of aged care!

Winnie Laban tried three times to get an official, cross party investigation into aged care, in the Health select committee, and the National party vetoed it –three times!

Unable to do it officially through Parliament because of National’s veto, Winnie and I decided we would do it unofficially, outside of Parliament, and we approached Grey Power to see if they could help us to hold meetings and make contacts with people who had had their home help cut or had experiences in an aged care.

John Carter’s remarks are even more outrageous when you consider that National MPs routinely attend meetings and have regular contacts with any number of organisations –Federated Farmers, Business New Zealand, to name but a few.

And I note they regularly speak at Grey power conferences as well.

Clearly, John Carter’s unfortunate and hypocritical remarks are an indication of just how sensitive the Nats are to our planned investigation into the care the elderly receive.

The last thing they want is the lid lifted on the extent to which they are making savage cuts to the supports the elderly receive and to aged care generally. Nor do they want to face up to the pain and devastation their cuts are causing to many of our most frail and vulnerable elderly.