E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
TUESDAY, 28 JULY 2020

SUBJECTS: Theo Makridis; aged care crisis; anti-maskers.

ALLISON LANGDON, HOST: I want to show you this morning this picture. This is Theo Makridis. Just one human face of this unfolding tragedy. He was a resident of St Basil’s Aged Care Home in Melbourne. His family spent five agonising days desperately searching for information about him. They were told nothing, and only now have they discovered he was already dead. It is utterly heartbreaking. And it's a national scandal. To discuss, I'm joined by the Shadow Minister for Government Services Bill Shorten, and Gus Worland from Triple M. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Bill, you raised this case because Theo was your neighbour. You know his family. It's just disgraceful, isn't it?

BILL SHORTEN, MEMEBR FOR MARIBYRNONG: It's incredibly heartbreaking. Theo lived two doors down from us, for 10 years. Ninety two year old gentleman. He looked after his adult son who had an impairment. Rita, the daughter, rang me on Saturday, just past. And she said, I'm just out of out of luck. I cannot find what has happened to my father for five days. I couldn't believe this. Five days. He went into St Basil's on July the 7th. It was locked down on July the 8th. But for the five days between Tuesday of last week to Saturday, no response at all. They couldn't tell him if he was alive or had passed away where he was, hospital or in the aged care facility. Then Saturday afternoon, late afternoon, Rita finally got a call. And it was the news that she didn't want to hear - that he'd passed.

LANGDON: So they had no chance to say goodbye. Nothing.

SHORTEN: No chance to say goodbye. Nothing. And, do you know, I spoke to the family last night and to the funeral director, they still can't even get the paperwork for the death certificate so he can have his funeral with only ten people able to go next Monday. The system is under-loved, understaffed, underfunded. And you shouldn't lose someone for five days and then find out they've just passed away. It is wrong.

LANGDON: And you can hear the emotion in your voice there, Bill. I mean he was your neighbour for 10 years.

SHORTEN: Lovely fellow. Would always say g’day. He lived at the corner of the roundabout. We lived two doors down and he'd always say hello, he loved his family. Anyway, he’s not the only person. And, you know, I think for Theo’s family, it's not just about him. But now we've got in aged care, the problems and loss of life. At Menarock facility in Essendon, which we spoke about a couple of weeks ago, they've had five fatalities in my electorate. But this is aged care. It's not just the COVID-19. Aged care hasn't been working properly. There's a lot of great people in the system, but something's fundamentally wrong. And as I read somewhere, it's just understaffed, under-loved and underfunded.

LANGDON: Gus, It's just not good enough is it, when, if we can't protect our most vulnerable. What's the point?

GUS WORLAND, TRIPLE M: Absolutely right. And my heart goes out to you. Bill, I know exactly the type of guy that Theo is just by that photograph and how you spoke about him. And I'm sure that he is one of many. So, an absolute tragedy. Imagine that for five days, not knowing where granddad is or not knowing where your dad is. I can't imagine what that family have been through. Just another tragedy that, you've put it down to COVID of course, but of course, the system is broken, isn't it? So we need to have that have that fixed.

LANGDON: And this morning, the Australian Medical Association says they want a Royal Commission into Victoria's handling of this crisis. Bill, are you on board?

SHORTEN: No, I think at this point, there is an enquiry into the hotel quarantine issues, but there's already a Royal Commission into aged care. It's underway. My point is that for five days, they couldn't find this man. And then they got the terrible news. They still can't get the death certificate. Now, my point’s about aged care, COVID-19 exposed the sort of underbelly of what's been going on in aged care anyway, I suspect. As a nation, we make a decision. Do we think our older people are important or not? We make a decision, do we just shrug our shoulders and kick the issue down the road? And say oh, too hard and they're old and who cares? Or do we just say, wake up? Aged care matters. People matter. To me, what happened to Theo, it's illustrative that the system doesn't respond to families when we need it most.

LANGDON: Yep, we need the system to step up. We need people to step up. So when you then see conspiracy theorists holding secret meetings, we saw another woman confronting staff at Bunnings yesterday. Just take a quick look at this.

VIDEO PACKAGE: The man is on the phone now to the police. He's calling the police despite the fact that I am actually here shopping, I’m a paying customer. Remember, this is about your control. It's about your compliance. It's about silencing you.

LANGDON: Okay. Well, I would say to that woman that this morning we now have nearly 700 of our elderly with COVID-19 in 61 facilities. Bill, your message to that woman?

SHORTEN: My message to that woman is wake up to yourself. You know, don't be selfish. COVID-19 is real. It's not a conspiracy. It's not a made up rumour. Why do people take cameras into Bunnings to film themselves deliberately going looking for trouble? It's selfish. The rest of us in Melbourne are wearing our masks. We're doing our social distancing. People can't go to funerals. The Year 12 kids are doing it hard. Everyone's doing it hard. And you just want your 15 minutes of whack job fame.

LANGDON: What is going on with them, Gus? I mean, what world, what planet do they live on?

WORLAND: They’re attention seeking freaks. They really are. They should have the book thrown at them. I'd love a cop to go in there and just say, sorry darl, and put her in the back of the paddy wagon, let her rot in jail for a week or two to sort her head out. Bill’s absolutely right. Attention seeking, who goes into Bunnings knowing exactly what she wants to do, she wants to try to rile up staff who are out there trying to do a good job, they’re at work, trying not to get this particular virus. It's just so selfish. And it really annoys me, that part of Australia, people that think they can get away with this sort of stuff, and at the moment, they are. And they are getting attention.

LANGDON: Oh, and this is the problem we then have with social media, isn't it, that they've got this platform, they share their messages, they almost egg each other on, don't they, Bill?

SHORTEN: Yeah, social media is such an unregulated area. It's the Wild West where every idiot with a computer keyboard can, you know, be a hero. But when it comes to what that lady is doing, it's selfish. I have people in the public commission towers, this is a great stat which shows how much better people can be, the compliance rate with all forms of testing is in the high 90 percents. So these people in the high rise, many of the migrants locked, locked down by police, they cooperated fully. And yet you got these self-appointed vigilantes of the no-nothing brigade just carrying on like they’re heroes.

LANGDON: Yeah. Well, strong words from both of you this morning. And thank you for coming on. And, Bill, I mean, our thoughts and prayers are with Theo, Theo's family. So many families going through a similar situation at the moment.

SHORTEN: Thank you.

LANGDON: It's tough. Thanks, guys.