“The
alleged rapes of four elderly women at a Victorian nursing home has sparked
national outrage”, The Herald Sunreports today.

An emergency summit into aged care has been ordered following the
alleged rape of a 98-year-old grandmother, a shocked Prime Minister has backed
calls for new laws to protect aged care residents and a male employee has been
charged with raping four residents of a Mornington Peninsula nursing home.

And the new Minister for Ageing, Santo Santoro, fronted Red Kez on The 7.30 Report– looking as if he’d just had a kerosene bath.

Two points immediately leapt to mind. First, is Santoro the new Bronwyn
Bishop or the new Con Sciacca? Yes, he’s looking after the oldies just like
Bronnie and he’s been left with a particularly nasty mess in his portfolio. But perhaps
it’s just the Anglo-Saxon background of most ministers that made him seem as
shifty on TV as Con Sciacca.

Second – and more fascinating – you can’t help
thinking that Kerry O’Brien enjoyed quizzing the Minister about the complaints
handling procedures of his department; given the haranguing he has been giving
the ABC on the same subject over the past two years.