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

I move:

That the requested amendments be made.

We're delivering once-in-a-generation reforms to aged care that give older Australians more choice, dignity and safe, high-quality care. We've continued to listen to older Australians, the workers who care for them and our aged-care providers, and we're stepping up to deliver more home-care support now and under the new Aged Care Act from 1 November. We've engaged in positive, constructive negotiations with the opposition over this sitting period, and we're grateful for their genuine desire to help us build a better aged-care system.

The existing Home Care Packages Program has almost doubled in size in recent years, growing to around 300,000 people compared to 155,000 people just five years ago. The new Support at Home program will help even more older Australians stay at home for longer, with a higher level of care available to support people to stay close to family and community in the comfort of their own homes. This is a responsible decision that will deliver more care, faster, to the older Australians who need it most while maintaining the medium-term fiscal save that was a key pillar of our aged-care reforms last year.

To keep up with the increased demand, the Albanese government is fast tracking the release of more home-care packages. We'll make an extra 20,000 home-care packages available in the next eight weeks until the new Aged Care Act comes into effect. Once the new Support at Home program comes into place, we'll provide support to a further 63,000 older Australians in the first eight months, by 30 June 2026.

This Labor government is committed to ensuring that older Australians get the care they need and the care that they deserve. The bipartisan passage of the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 is the latest milestone in our generational aged-care reforms.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak to this request for amendments to the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, received from the Senate. These are historic amendments for this parliament. It is a testament to the importance of being constructive when we can and critical when we must. This is an important moment in this parliament because this is a moment where an arrogant government has been brought to heel.

It is important for the House that we understand how we arrived here today. After months of coordinated pressure and sustained questioning in parliament, the coalition has forced the Albanese Labor government to belatedly release tens of thousands of home-care packages for older Australians who've been left waiting for too long. Labor promised 83,000 new packages from 1 July 2025 but instead decided to withhold that support. They blamed the sector. They blamed the bureaucrats. This out-of-touch government blamed everyone but itself. Because of Labor's delays, not a single new home-care package has been released this financial year. As a result, the priority waitlist has blown out to more than 108,000—a 400 per cent increase in just two years—whilst wait times have tripled. These are not just statistics; these are Australians. Tragically, almost 5,000 older Australians died in the past year while waiting for care.

Thanks to a coordinated pressure campaign from the coalition, led by the shadow health and aged-care minister, Senator Anne Ruston, in the other place, the government has caved. We forced Labor to make a choice in this legislation: listen to the coalition and release these packages early or vote against the coalition and deny vulnerable Australians the support they desperately need. As we can see today, they have listened to the coalition and they have listened to older Australians. The truth is it took the coalition to force this arrogant Labor government to listen to older Australians and to us.

This situation should never have happened. The money was in the budget. The capacity was there. Only Labor stood in the way. It's a black mark on this government that it withheld support from tens of thousands of older Australians who desperately needed it. Neither the Prime Minister, the Minister for Health and Ageing nor the hapless Minister for Aged Care and Seniors has explained to Australians why it took the coalition holding their feet to the fire in the Senate to release this much-needed support. Given their performance this week, I'm not sure we should expect an honest explanation any time soon. But be under no illusion. These amendments represent a defeat for this government. This is not a deal, Prime Minister; this is a defeat. Labor has been forced into a humiliating backdown.

But this is not about political wins or the government's backdowns. It never has been. This is a win for older Australians in desperate need of assistance. Australians who built this country died waiting for the packages they could have and should have accessed but were denied because of Labor's bad decisions.

They're Australians like Clara. Clara is 91 years old. She lives with her husband, who suffers from Parkinson's. Clara has been assessed as needing home-care support to help her stay living independently with her husband, but she has been told that she will not receive her home-care package until July 2026. There's Elliot. Elliot is 86 years old and lives at home with his wife. He was approved for a level 4 home-care package in March this year but was told it will be more than 12 months before he receives his package. In the meantime, both of his daughters are having to provide the care their parents need.

These are the Australians we have fought for, these are the Australians we pushed the government for and these are the Australians who have had a win today.

This is a crisis of the government's own making. We are proud to have forced this government into providing an additional 83,000 packages this financial year, but there is still more work to be done, and the coalition will continue to fight for older Australians with one clear goal: no-one should have to wait for the care they have been assessed as needing.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I give the call to anyone else seeking the call, the Leader of the Opposition, out of respect for her position, was given quite a bit of latitude in that speech, but I am going to remind any remaining speakers that at this stage of the debate you are required to speak to the amendments.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we as a parliament have delivered a significant win for tens of thousands of older people in need of aged-care support at home. The Greens and the crossbench are delivering for our communities, and it shows that, despite Labor's massive majority in this place, we can still encourage them into making real, meaningful change for regular people in the community.

After months of pressure from the Greens and the crossbench, the government has announced it'll bring forward the planned 83,000 home-care packages and begin to release them immediately, with 20,000 released prior to 1 November. The government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this outcome. They had to suffer—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Ryan, remember the introductory remarks and get straight to the amendments you are wanting to speak to.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

yes—to bring forward 20,000 new home-care packages. Amendments passed by the Senate have forced the government to urgently negotiate and bring forward that release of 20,000 home-care packages and front-load the release of the Support at Home program from 1 November. The Greens have for a long time been pushing the government hard to take action, chairing a Senate inquiry into the issue and putting forward amendments to the government's aged-care legislation. My Greens colleague Senator Penny Allman-Payne has worked very hard at this, and it is a credit to the work of her, to Senator David Pocock and to Senator Ruston that this reform has been achieved. This will begin the work of addressing the urgent needs of over 200,000 older Australians waiting 12 months or more for basic care like showering, cooking and cleaning. But there are still over 200,000 people on the waiting list for Support at Home, and this win will barely touch the sides. We're still seeing care rationed and older people treated, sadly, like commodities.

This government is looking more and more out of touch and desperate after being forced to change policy by the Greens and the crossbench. What is particularly concerning is how this government is allergic to transparency. They hid that the waiting list was not 87,000 but actually well over 200,000. They've hidden modelling on the financial impact on older people. They've hidden the fact that, until we forced them to, they were releasing no new packages at all. Together, we've ended those pointless delays and started getting older Australians the essential care that they really need. Labor has resisted all calls to do that right thing, so now the parliament has had to force them to. That is the power of the Greens and the crossbench working together, and it has made a real difference for older people in this country.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an incredibly positive thing to rise and support these amendments. These amendments were hard fought, I think it's fair to say, and I want to talk to each of these amendments individually. The first amendment I would like to talk to is the 20,000 Home Care Packages that are going to be released immediately by the government, recognising that there are 106,000 people on the waiting list right now and recognising that there are 120,000 people waiting to be assessed.

When I think about these 20,000 packages, I think about a gentleman called Cyril Tooze. Cyril was a carer until he was 82—a paid carer for a gentleman with a disability. Cyril was waiting for his package, and he very well needed one of these 20,000 packages that are going to be released. Cyril ended up being hospitalised because he couldn't get that care at home last year. He was a tall man; he was about six foot tall. Cyril ended up being hospitalised and ended up choosing voluntary euthanasia because the package never came for Cyril. The packages didn't come for thousands of people who died in the last year nor, as we found out, for nearly 5,000 people this year. These were older Australians who died while waiting for a package. Cyril held my hand before he died. We had a bit of a party for Cyril, to celebrate his life, before he died. He said, 'Rebekha, I'm going to make a difference.' Well, it took a long time, but, to Cyril and all of the other older Australians, I hope you realise that all of us in here are fighting to make a difference for you.

The 20,000 packages are excellent. They are a drop in the ocean, and I'd like to acknowledge and talk to some of the other amendments. The rest of those 83,000 packages that were promised by the government last December—around the time that Cyril passed away—are now going to be released in this financial year. That's still going to leave many, many older Australians on the waiting list, but, hopefully, it will mean that we'll get to a position in this place where people are not waiting up to a year to be assessed and then up to a year, or even longer in some cases, to actually get their package. People are dying; people are losing hope; and people cannot understand why, when they can't even lift their husband to get them into the shower and when their husband can't even walk because of neurological disease, they are still just a medium priority—they're not even given high priority.

I think that these amendments that have come down from the Senate are desperately needed by our nation, by our oldest people. We in here all enjoy the nation that we live in because of them. So I commend these amendments, which were very hard-fought and won. Let us hope that we never again in Australia get to a position where we have nearly 5,000 Australians in a year dying waiting for care.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the amendments to the home-care packages that have been put through the Senate and have now returned to the House. I want to highlight why these are so important. It really comes back to my experience in my community in Wentworth. I was in Paddington recently at Five Ways, doing a pop-up office, and I had three people come and talk to me about their own experience of home-care packages and how they just could not understand—when they had been assessed as needing something, knowing that they needed something, doing their best as members of the community who wanted to stay at home—not being able to get the help that they needed to stay out of aged care. They could not understand why their packages were going to take months or up to a year or so, so they could get that support that they had been identified as needing. They felt that, once a need was identified, the help would be there. This disconnect between the need being identified and recognised and the help being delivered was unintelligible to them. I think it's unintelligible to most Australians. I want to say that this is a really important change that has been put through.

I recognise that the government has been trying to make home aged care and care for older Australians more sustainable. That is a good thing. That is a very positive thing. But home care is really critical to that. Home care is both a good economic choice—if we can keep people out of aged care, it is better in terms of the cost—and, most importantly, a good choice for people's families and for people's own mental health. It is what they want. Both bringing the additional 20,000 packages and bringing forward those packages earlier in the year are really critical when we are seeing such a growth of people on the waiting list desperately needing help and not being able to get it.

I also want to acknowledge everyone who has played a part in this. I wrote to the government last year about my concerns with home-care packages, based on the feedback I'd got from constituents. I was proud to work with Senator Pocock and others earlier, just after the election, when there was concern that the packages would be delayed, to say that they should not be delayed. I've been proud to stand up with other members of the crossbench and across the parliament to say: 'This is important. These changes are required, and it's time to put them through.' This is a positive day for the parliament. This is a good choice, and I'm proud to have been part of that. Certainly my community will be extremely grateful for the changes that have been made to this bill.

Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the release of these 20,000 home-care packages. I believe it is an important step forward for the parliament and also for the nation. Most people in our communities know how important home care is to our seniors and the difference that it makes to people's lives. I think everyone was shocked that these packages were being withheld. The feedback from the Calare electorate, in the central west of New South Wales, is that the packages need to be released on the double and that we need to get help to our seniors to help with their amenity of life and the support that they need.

I commend my crossbench colleagues, in particular, for leading the charge on this. The crossbench has been very vocal on this. It's an issue that is close to the hearts of many Australians. There are still about 121,000 people being assessed and 109,000 people waiting for packages. So this issue has not gone away. We, as a nation, must do much better to support our seniors and those in need. I commend everyone involved on the push for the release of these packages—in particular, my crossbench colleagues and Senator Pocock, who have been right in there from the very beginning on this, pushing for these important changes and for this vital support to be released.

Question agreed to.