Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Broken promises, overcrowded hospitals, ambulances ramped for hours, elective surgeries delayed for months, if not years, and a Prime Minister who is shirking his responsibility—this is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's health and aged-care crisis. The Prime Minister promised to fund 42.5 per cent of hospital funding costs by 2030. Now, he's backing away, putting caps on his own promises, which means the Commonwealth contribution could actually go backwards. This is a major broken promise.

What's worse is that it is Labor's aged-care failures that are fuelling these pressures on our hospitals. Right now, thousands of older Australians are stranded in hospitals waiting for aged-care support. It's no wonder that every single state and territory leader has now written to the Prime Minister to call him out. They are united in accusing the Prime Minister for—I quote from their letter—'forcing those vulnerable people to stay in hospital and denying others a hospital bed they desperately need.' These accusations are backed up by the data. A major new industry report has revealed that only 578 new aged-care beds were made operational last financial year. That's only around five per cent of what is needed to meet demand. Occupancy in our aged-care homes is almost at capacity, and more than 238,000 Australians have been left waiting for home-care support, with a government purposely rationing the care and release of packages. Older Australians are stuck in hospital because there is nowhere else for them to go. This is a national disgrace of the Prime Minister's making. Anthony Albanese promised to put care back into our aged care, but, instead, he is blaming the states and territories for his failure. Enough is enough. Stop blaming others for your failures and do your job, Prime Minister.