Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. Minister, your government promised that in a transition to your once-in-a-generation reforms, older people getting care at home would be no worse off, yet many seniors in my electorate who have been approved for home-care packages are left stuck in the national priority queue with only limited interim help because providers are at capacity. Will you urgently review these long-waited transition cases and set clear maximum wait times so older Australians are not left in limbo without real support at home while your reforms roll out?

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

I thank the member for Fowler for her question. I appreciate the constructive conversations that we've had about older people and their care in her community. As I've said consistently, we want every Australian to be able to access safe, dignified and high-quality aged-care services. To that end, as the member's question referred, we are engaging in generational reform of Australia's aged-care system. The new Aged Care Act came into effect on 1 November and along with it, the new Support at Home program—again, to which the member's question refers.

Labor has increased aged-care funding overall by over 40 per cent since the Liberals were last in government. That is one of the steps that we're taking. However, demand for care is growing very rapidly. Today almost 350,000 Australians are receiving care through the Support at Home program, and that's more than double the number of places when compared to the Home Care Packages Program of just five years ago. Over the next 40 years, the number of Australians aged over 65 is expected to more than double, and those aged 85 and over will more than triple. To meet this demand in the short term, we're in the process of rolling out an additional 83,000 Support at Home places this financial year alone. These extra packages are getting more older Australians the care they need faster, and they're taking pressure off the National Priority System, which had dropped by over 25,000 people to the end of last year.

We're also seeing encouraging signs that our reforms are moving the assessment system in the right direction. Between the April-June and July-September quarters of 2025, median wait times for home support assessments dropped by seven days. Median comprehensive assessment wait times are now sitting well under a month consistently. We know there's always more work to do, and we'll continue focusing on reducing wait times further so that every older Australian can access care as soon as possible.

The new Aged Care Act established a sustainable funding model so those who can afford to contribute to their care do so, while those with fewer means can continue to access care. This is what good stewardship looks like. We have taken the prudent steps to ensure that the aged-care system is sustainable and is equitable and can serve the generations of Australians into the future.