Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck says hundreds of COVID deaths in the sector are not an indicator of his performance.

Senator Colbeck has stared down calls to resign over the government’s handling of the pandemic, which has seen close to 700 aged care COVID deaths in the last two months. There are 915 COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care facilities across the country.

Senator Colbeck says the wave of deaths and infections in his portfolio is not because of him. 

“We are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the completely tragic result of that is people will catch the virus across all parts of the community, and tragically, some will die,” he told an estimates hearing this week.

“It is very clear that the measures that we’ve put in place during the pandemic have improved the circumstances in residential aged care.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison claims his government has “worked tirelessly” to reduce fatalities.

“The work that we’ve done and the additional supports that we’ve put in place, which indeed have been supported by the Minister for Aged Care Services… have been there to ensure that Australia, when compared with other countries around the world, has one of the lowest rates of fatalities from COVID, including in residential aged care facilities,” he said.

“Passing away with COVID… is not the same as passing away because of COVID.

“That is the medical advice that has been provided by the chief medical officer.”

Senator Colbeck was savaged by the press, his opposition, and the aged-care sector for attending an Ashes Test match in January instead of appearing before an upper house inquiry into the pandemic.

He attempted to defend his decision, saying he was balancing his sport and aged-care portfolios.

But this week, he said he accepted criticism of the “mistake”.

“I think it’s pretty roundly viewed as being a mistake … but I would like to put on record that at the time the COVID committee wanted to see me I was actually working on dealing with the issues,” he said.

“I did go to the cricket that afternoon … but, if you look back in hindsight, to be frank, would I have been better off actually trying to deal with the issues of the pandemic than talking to the committee about it?

“I would rather have been actually dealing with the issues, but the committee wanted to see me. I made a decision. I have been roundly criticised for that and I accept that.”

The Morrison Government is sending up to 1,700 military personnel to help the aged care sector “crisis”, with around 5 per cent of aged care workers currently unable to work after testing positive to the virus.

Senator Colbeck admits that making these changes to staffing arrangements earlier could have helped deal with the peak of Omicron cases.

“It’s easy to look at that in hindsight,” he said.

“We work with the information we have at a particular point in time, with the advice with respect to what the virus is doing, and we make a decision based on that.”