Labor is facing its first Senate showdown of the new term, with an unlikely political alliance pushing to expedite the delivery of home supports for older Australians languishing on a waitlist.
The Coalition, Greens and independent senator David Pocock have teamed up to pressure the government to bring forward 20,000 home support packages, after the government’s promised release of 83,000 was pushed back from July to November.
More than 121,000 older Australians are waiting to be assessed for assistance to help them live at home, the federal health department revealed on Friday, on top of at least 87,000 who have been approved but are waiting for a package or a higher level of support.
The government needs to pass its bill to tweak existing legislation to bring it in line with the aged care reforms before they are rolled out later this year, but the alliance has seized on it to bring amendments that would require additional packages to be released immediately.
Push for urgent support packages to age at home
An amendment set to be moved by shadow Aged Care Minister Anne Ruston demands 20,000 packages be released now and a total of 40,000 made available before the end of the year.
If the changes clear the Senate, the bill will need to return to the House of Representatives, potentially delaying its passage. Debate began in the Senate on Monday evening and is expected to continue on Tuesday.
Senator Ruston on Monday said the Coalition would not stand in the way of the legislation, but urged Labor to bring forward the planned release of home care packages.
“Anthony Albanese and his government have abandoned older Australians who need support to stay independent living in their own homes,” she said.
“Many vulnerable older Australians are waiting more than a year to access care they’ve been assessed as needing, this is nothing short of a national crisis.
“The department is ready, the sector is ready, but the government continues to withhold critical aged care packages without any reasonable excuse.”
Aged Care Minister Sam Rae has not indicated whether the government would move to speed up the home-care roll out, but has repeatedly said more packages will available from November 1.
Labor defends roll-out plan
The issue dominated Question Time on Monday, with Coalition and independent MPs all hammering the minister.
It prompted Mr Rae to vow that anyone who is assessed as high priority would get support within a month, once the November roll-out date arrives.
“We acknowledge that wait times for aged care assessments are longer than we would like and we are working to address this,” he said.
Aged Care Minister Sam Rae was hammered in Question Time on Monday. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Mr Rae, who was bumped to the frontbench in this year’s reshuffle, added that more than 2,000 home care packages were currently being allocated each week.
But department officials last week confirmed they were not new packages and instead ones made available through older people either dying or moving into residential care.
They also confirmed that no additional packages have been made available since the end of last financial year.
Senator Penny Allman-Payne, the Greens spokesperson for older people, wrote to Health Minister Mark Butler on Monday warning that the delay in rolling out the Support at Home program has meant families have had to admit their loved ones to hospital.
“It is clear that the government’s refusal to release more home care packages is rippling across our healthcare system, in particular the availability of hospital beds,” she said.
The government has previously argued it was necessary to delay the implementation of the sweeping Aged Care Act changes by a few months, from July to November, in order to allow the sector time to prepare.
Aged care reforms delayed after sector raised survival issues
Aged care advocates and providers welcomed the extension, but argue the promised release of new home-care packages — which provide assistance for things like cooking, cleaning or showering — shouldn’t have been held up along with the rest of the changes.
“Yes, you delayed the act but you can’t delay the packages, we need more now,” said Tom Symonston, chief executive of Ageing Australia.
“We could deal with 20,000 new packages really quite easily as a sector.”
The broader reforms address recommendations of the royal commission into the aged-care industry, but the rushed timeframe to implement them drew criticism from the sector.
Mr Rae on Monday said the “overwhelming response” from elderly Australians and providers was that they needed a “brief deferral of the implementation of the new Aged Care Act to ensure that the implementation would be smooth and would meet the needs of older Australians”.
“This is a system-wide reform that changes the way that care is delivered,” he said.
“We’re spending each and every day until November 1 making sure that this system works for older people.”