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

I thank the member for the question. Firstly, can I extend my condolences to Mr Austin's family. As I said earlier this week, it stands to any reasonable person's judgement that there's not a single person in this place who wants an older Australian to die while waiting for care. It's why our generational reforms of Australia's aged-care system have been, and continue to be, so important. The royal commission looked into older people dying while waiting for care, and, as I said earlier, at the peak of the aged-care crisis, in 2018, more than 16,000 older Australians were dying every year while waiting for care. And that aged-care royal commission released a report that was mononymously titled Neglect.

We, since being elected in 2022, have made the most significant investments in Australia's aged-care system ever. We are overhauling the aged-care system—whether it's in-home care or residential aged care—from the ground up. The way that we drive down the numbers, which we've successfully done, is to reduce the wait times for older people to receive the care that they need. The latest data shows that we are well on our way to doing that. Standard-priority cases are waiting on average three months less, medium-priority cases are waiting two months less, and high-priority wait times are now just one to two months. Those assessed as 'urgent priority', as always, will receive their full funding within a single month.

Assessment wait times have been reduced from the worst point, where people were waiting up to 10 months, and the median wait time for comprehensive assessments is now well under a single month. Next year, the federal government will invest $47 billion—

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