PM uses aged care as example of ministerial responsibility
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, used aged care as an example of defining ministerial responsibility in his press conference on 23 February.
“In the broader debate of ministerial responsibility, let us look at the daily responsibilities of those who have been Minister for ageing in the past and at present.”
“On a day-to-day basis, what happens in an aged care institution in terms of the operation of it can produce some awful results, which we’ve seen over time,” he said.
“Is the Minister directly responsible for each and every one of those events? Well, it goes back to the more fundamental systemic questions of what risk assessment was undertaken in the design of a policy, and has the minister in question acted responsibly in terms of the departmental advice that was put to him or her in laying out a program?
“Whether it’s the aged care system, whether it’s the transport system, whether it’s the road system, whether it’s the safety and security of our Defence forces at a particular time as well, let’s put some context into this debate about what constitutes ministerial responsibility.”
