Labor could be dealt first defeat over delayed home care for 200,000 Australians

3 months ago 11

Labor could be dealt its first defeat on the Senate floor since its landslide election win, as the Greens, Coalition and crossbench team up to force the government to expedite the delivery of home care packages for elderly Australians who are waiting for support.

The Health Department last week revealed a backlog of 121,596 older Australians were waiting to be assessed so they could receive home care, on top of 87,000 people already on the official waitlist with approved packages that had not been released.

Every Coalition and crossbench question on Monday was directed at new Aged Care Minister Sam Rae.

The home care packages were delayed when the government deferred the start of its aged care reforms – set to introduce higher resident fees, stronger regulatory powers and a rebooted support-at-home scheme – from July to November.

Delaying the rollout cost the federal budget $1 billion in lost savings and was based on the sector’s request for more time to prepare. But providers told a Senate inquiry on Friday that the home care packages could roll out now, even if the residential aged care changes took effect in November.

Peak body Ageing Australia said 98 per cent of providers they surveyed said they could support extra home care packages immediately, while the Inspector General of Aged Care also backed their urgent release.

Opposition aged care spokeswoman Anne Ruston said: “The money is there, the sector is ready – but Labor refuses to act.”

Their demand for the packages to be released now has set up the first political clash for the Albanese government since it returned to Parliament with a 94-seat majority after its May election win. Despite boosting its numbers in the Senate, Labor still needs the support of either the Coalition or Greens to pass legislation.

Independent Senator David Pocock, the Coalition and the Greens have each moved amendments in the Senate to force the government to release the packages early, and look set to pool their support to force the changes when a vote is brought this week.

“People shouldn’t be made to go without a shower or forced into hospital or residential aged care early just because the government won’t release the Home Care packages they’ve already budgeted for,” Pocock said.

The Coalition and crossbenchers used Monday’s question time to prosecute new Aged Care Minister Sam Rae over the delays, directing every question to him in the House of Representatives, while also peppering the government in the Senate.

Rae said the government was still delivering 2000 home care packages every week.

“We will ensure that every single Australian who is assessed as high priority will continue to receive their package within a month,” he said.

“And from 1 November, we will continue to invest in the support at home program as the key mechanism for delivering the in home care that older Australians tell us that they want.”

But Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne said the inquiry had revealed those 2000 weekly packages comprised of funding re-allocated from Australians who had passed away or no longer required them, rather than a net increase.

“Minister Rae has misled older people when he says he has been releasing packages each week,” she said.

“There is literally no reason why the Government cannot release more packages aside from stubbornness by a Minister who is out of his depth, and a Labor party that can never admit when they’re wrong.”

David Pocock is believed to have Coalition and Greens backing for his amendment to fast-track aged care packages.

Health Minister Mark Butler said he understood that providers were now saying they wanted the new home care packages released urgently.

“But if you have a look at their media commentary in the lead in and after the decision was taken to delay the aged care system’s commencement date from 1 November, their message was very clear. They didn’t feel that we were ready as a country to move to an entirely new aged care system,” Butler said.

“They knew what that would mean, which is that the introduction of a new Support at Home system would also be delayed by four months. We recognised that by continuing to put the vacant packages back into the system in the interim period.”

Butler said the government was compressing “what should have been a decade’s reform into three short years” and he was not pretending the transition would be easy.

“I know that put a lot pressure on aged care providers to do a lot of change very quickly,” he said.

Pocock’s amendment, which appears to have the support of the Greens and Coalition, calls for the release of 20,000 of the government’s promised 83,000 packages before November.