ANDREW CLENNELL, SKY NEWS LIVE: And joining me live is Aged Care and Sports Minister Anika Wells. Anika Wells, thanks for your time this morning. Take me through this women's health package.
ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND MINISTER FOR SPORT: [Talks over] Good morning, Andrew.
CLENNELL: Government's announcing today, how it will benefit women and the reason behind it.
WELLS: Well, I have been wondering if you are in fact psychic, Andrew, making the predictions you did, but today we, the Albanese Government, are announcing more than half a billion dollars' worth of game-changing policy for women's health, an area that has been long neglected. And it really does change the game for this area and for women who need cost of living relief in an area as important as health. I think, like you said already, the ability to go to a chemist and get an oral contraceptive or UTI treatment is something that people desperately need when we know young women increasingly don't even have a regular GP. So that's a really important cost of living initiative, let alone the fact that there hasn't been an oral contraceptive added to the PBS in re than 30 years. I'm in my 30s and come March 1st, Yaz and Yasmin will be added to the PBS. And then in menopause, I know it's been a big issue this parliamentary term, the menopause inquiry response was huge. Finally getting some clinical guidelines, finally getting an information campaign, finally getting Medicare line items for menopause to be correctly assessed by physicians and then for oestrogen gels, treatments for menopause to be added to the PBS. It's going to save women hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every single year.
CLENNELL: They're health measures but they're also as you say cost of living measures, but is this more comfort to the women of Australia juggling family budgets and seeing grocery prices, rents, mortgage payments spiral out of control?
WELLS: I would not dare to suggest that something as important as your very health is a small comfort, particularly when the menopause inquiry told us that these can often be debilitating symptoms that gets misdiagnosed, women don't feel like they're listened to and actually find the time amidst, like you say, all of their commitments to go and seek some help. So better training for physicians to pick it up, better Medicare items for this to be treated in a cost of living way, gels, treatments for the actual menopause itself. All of this coming online is actually- I think strikes at the heart of Australian women wanting to know that their government understands them and does what they can to help them where they need it.
CLENNELL: I suggested the other week as you alluded to that the Opposition would be well advised to come out with some more women's friendly policy ahead of the election. Do you think that might assist them?
WELLS: Well, Andrew, I'm sure you're a Swiftie like I am. Taylor swift would say this has been a long time coming and this is a policy area that anybody had the opportunity to dive into. We've taken it on. Some of these medicines will now be available from March 1st. That's just a couple of weeks away and we'll get everything else online as quickly as possible. Like you've said, we're talking about this within- when we're talking about this within an election frame, the number one issue is cost of living. It's head and shoulders above anything else, and when I do mobile offices and door knock, what people are asking me about is service delivery. It's about making sure that they do have high quality services like Medicare when their budgets are tight. So like you say, this actually addresses both. It's an area that women really do need their government to understand them and treat them when they need it and it's also a way that we can ease household budgets with actual hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year in cost of living relief.
CLENNELL: Let me ask now about Werribee By-Election result in Victoria. Anika Wells, for weeks now I've heard of problems with the Labor vote in Victoria and the primary vote of Labor in this heartland seat has collapsed. This must be a real concern for the Federal Election in terms of your prospects in Victoria where the Government holds a lot of seats?
WELLS: Well, look, Andrew, I'm a member of Queensland Labor. It's always hard for us up here and we just lived through the Queensland State Election at the end of last year and I think what that taught me and others is that what people actually valued is cost of living relief and political parties actually taking big swings to try and deliver cost of living relief wherever that was possible. So we are responsive, we are delivering $573 million worth of cost of living relief in an area that is desperately underserviced like women's health today.
CLENNELL: Do you read anything into this result though in terms of federal implications?
WELLS: Andrew, I- at the moment, it's too close to call. When I first got elected to Parliament in 2019, it took 10 days to count back and I won by 1229 votes so my advice to anyone would be we've got a long way to count yet.
CLENNELL: Alright. I wanted to ask about your Aged Care portfolio. Now deaths from COVID in aged care homes are greater than during the pandemic. What's the Government going to do to tackle this?
WELLS: Look, that statistic while I agree is alarming, is a result of it being more prevalent in the community because we aren't locking down nursing homes like we did- well, like the previous government did during the pandemic. And that is partially in response to clinical advice and partially in response to actual residents saying to me when I go around nursing homes, please don't lock us down again, please don't lock us down again. But if you actually look at the rate of deaths, it was up to something like one in three when people contracted COVID like you say during the pandemic. It's now one in- sort of somewhere between one in twenty, one in forty depending on the week reporting numbers that you're looking at. That's because we have antivirals ready to help people and they do make a huge difference.
CLENNELL: And the wait for a home care package, it was lower than six months under the previous government. It's up to 12 to 15 months in some cases. You announced your aged care reform package last year. Do you think you've solved the aged care crisis or do you have some real challenges given these waiting lists?
WELLS: I have always said we are bringing aged care back from the brink. It was absolutely in crisis, the government- the Morrison government knew that. There was a Royal Commission telling them that. They did nothing structural about it. They did pour money into home care packages to see those wait times come down. That was a good thing to do but it was also sort of a more easy political fix ahead of an election rather than the actual arduous, difficult policy and structural work that we have undertaken this term to secure a bipartisan agreement to set aged care up for the future. So like you say, from July 1st a whole new home care system, billions of dollars, about $5 billion worth of money going into the new home care system. So I appreciate people waiting. That's what happens when you have an aged care sector in crisis and neglected for the nine long years it was. We are bringing it out of the brink. I wish I could bring it out urgently and as fast as people would like but we're doing our very best and people are seeing better results in terms of their care. More than four million minutes' additional care every single day as a result of Albanese Government funding.
CLENNELL: Are you promising to get those wait lists down then?
WELLS: You'd see from when we announced the package that- I know you took a keen interest in aged care and I appreciate it, Andrew, that the additional $5 billion going into home care and new support at home launching on July 1st will see a record number of packages entering the system, more in one year than any previous government has ever attempted and so people will be able to start accessing those packages from July 1st.
CLENNELL: I wanted to ask you in your Sports Minister role now what do you think of Sam Kerr's predicament and her alleged behaviour?
WELLS: I think it has been a rocky road for Sam and her partner. The more we find out about that incident, the more you can understand why they've acted the way that they have. But being an ex-lawyer myself, I would never seek to interfere or comment on a court trial process whilst it's in action, but I think Australia certainly has- Sam certainly has Australia behind her.
CLENNELL: It's interesting. It sounds like you have commented on it, Anika Wells. Just moving on to mandatory minimum sentences and the legislation we saw during the week for anti-Semitic crimes.
WELLS: [Talks over] Well, there you go.
CLENNELL: It's a capitulation of the Opposition, isn't it?
WELLS: This is listening to the community who have made very clear to us they want strong and responsive policy in an area that has really alarmed people this term of government. And I said earlier in the week when asked about this, it doesn't reflect the Party platform because the Party platform we only update every two or three years. This is an issue that since October 7th has really risen as an area of alarm for community and the community wants the Federal Governments to respond accordingly and that's what we've done.
CLENNELL: You've got the former head of home affairs, Michael Pezzullo, out there saying the Federal Government should use its powers to take over the management of this issue from the states or to run the operation. What do you make of that?
WELLS: What I would say about- we should listen to our national security agencies, we should trust our national security agencies when they give us our advice and if Peter Dutton - he's made several comments this week that are pretty loose about him having his own personal conversations with agency people around this, but then refusing to disclose what those conversations were despite demanding a minute by minute TikTok of the Prime Minister's accountability. And Peter Dutton has also whilst on this personal accountability tear this week also refused to disclose his costings around his one costed economic policy for the term, shouting the bosses' lunch, whether it is in fact $250 million as rumoured rather than confirmed or whether it's more like $1.6 to $10 billion. If this is about people being personally accountable for what they say and do then I think Peter Dutton needs to look in the mirror rather than continuing to throw accusations at the Prime Minister.
CLENNELL: I wanted to ask about the upcoming appointment of Keith Pitt as our ambassador to the Vatican. Is it really appropriate so many of these appointments go to former politicians and are you surprised to see the PM give Keith Pitt this job?
WELLS: Andrew, at the moment this is all entirely conjecture. I have nothing to go on and so I won't be saying anything until I hear any kind of confirmation.
CLENNELL: Well, I can tell you he's getting the job. Do you have a view on it?
WELLS: Well, as much as I would like to trust you, Andrew Clennell of Sky News, I will wait to hear this confirmed if it is in fact confirmed. If you'd like me to say something about Keith Pitt, I will say I will always support a Queenslander.
CLENNELL: Just finally, how important is the Reserve Bank cutting rates to the prospects of the Government at the election and what do you hear about that in your seat?
WELLS: I do hear about cost of living, people wanting an ease to the pressure on their household budgets. I think when constituents- I did three mobile offices, a door knock and a community barbecue on Saturday, people want to see a rate cut and I think they're all looking forward to this date coming up and to see if that is the case. But they also want to know that whilst the RBA conducts itself in an independent way, the Federal Government has their back and it is doing whatever it can, pulling whatever levers we have available to us to ease the household living budgets and that's why I'm very pleased that we're backing them in with a $573 million women's health package that will save women hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year on things like oral contraceptives, UTI treatments, menopause diagnosis treatment and care.
CLENNELL: Anika Wells, thanks so much for your time.
WELLS: Always a pleasure, Andrew.
