Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for her question. I acknowledge that she engages very regularly and very constructively with me about ensuring that older people in her community can access the very best aged-care services, and I appreciate that engagement very much. I'm aware of the correspondence that she has provided to me and my office, some of which we have discussed.

As we know, demand for aged-care services has increased extraordinarily rapidly with an ageing population. Today, we have more than 350,000 Australians receiving care under our Support at Home program. That's more than double the number of places compared to the Home Care Packages Program that it replaced just five years ago. We also have 830,000 Australians receiving care under the Commonwealth Home Support Program. We are in the process of finalising the allocation of an additional 83,000 Support at Home places this financial year to help with wait times and to get more Australians, such as those that the member's question refers to, the care that they need. These extra allocations are taking pressure off the national priority system and making sure that more people are getting the compassionate and dignified care that they need faster.

It's worth the House understanding that 99 per cent of the people more broadly that are on the national priority system are already eligible for some form of home support while they wait for their approved level package and that every single person assessed as urgent priority is allocated their full funding within a single month. On 31 December 2025, the waitlist under the Support at Home program was 94,963 people. That was a drop of more than 25,000 people from 30 September 2025.

Older Australians deserve a system that works for them, and this government is getting on with building one. This evening's budget will be one that proves this Labor government's commitment to continuously investing to build an aged-care system that Australians can be proud of. We've already announced our commitment to remove co-contributions for personal care services, such as showering, dressing and continence care, and we've stepped out the foundations of our plan to make residential care sustainable, affordable and prepared to keep up with the demands of an ageing population.

Our government is working tremendously hard and with great focus on ensuring that every Australian across our community can get the aged-care services that they require. I'm more than happy to continue to meet and discuss those issues in the member's local community and work to resolve those for the people that you've spoken about today.

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