Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Keneally for the question. Senator Keneally is correct: yesterday, we announced a $537 million package to add additional capacity to the aged-care sector. Part of that package was an extra 10,000 home care packages, which add to the capacity that this government has continually added to the system since we came to government. When we came to government there were 60,000 home care packages in the system. As a result of the announcement that we made yesterday there will be 150,000 home care packages in the system this year as part of the growth of the sector.

As the royal commission noted, the demand for the home care program has continued to grow with supply. As the royal commission said, it's not just a matter of injecting a massive number of new home care packages into the system, because there are other constraints and other issues that have to be managed. The government has quite clearly acknowledged that we're going to deal with those things. We've said that we will modify the way that Australians are assessed before they go into the aged-care system—a single, national aged-care assessment process. We've said that we will do that as part of our reforms of the aged-care system. We've also said that we'll bring together home care and CHSP into one broader package which provides additional capacity and also assists people in ensuring they get care. The government has acknowledged there is still more work to do. But I'm not going to be lectured to by the Labor Party, which at the last election added $387 billion worth of taxes and did not put one single home care package on the table.