Aged care development conflict
The Federal Coalition Member for Leichhardt in Qld, Warren Entsch is a board member of developer CEC Group, which has won a local council tender to build a nursing home at Mossman in far north Queensland.
The Federal Opposition Spokeswoman for Aged Care, Senator Jan McLucas, who is based in Townsville, has described the involvement as a conflict of interest, and has renewed her call to the Government to expose its aged care bed allocation to scrutiny.
The operator will be Vitality Care, headed by former Northern Territory Health Minister Ian Tuxworth.
Mr Tuxworth and Vitality Care will seek 90 public bed licenses for the 132-bed facility.
Coalition ministers are barred from influencing the bed allocations but Senator McLucas says questions on ministerial involvement still exist after the former Senator Santo Santoro affair.
Mr Entsch denied any conflict of interest, describing CEC’s interest as a “bricks and mortar concern”. He says there is no conflict of interest and the whole process is above board.
