Aged Care Minister quizzed on around-the-clock nursing care and funding levy

Labor minister Anika Wells has refused to answer one key question as she was quizzed about a major election promise.

Australians won’t be given a new time frame for the introduction of 24/7 registered nurses onsite at aged care homes after Labor conceded its self-imposed deadline of July 1 would be impossible to meet.

On Sunday, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells would only say she was working to fulfil Labor’s election promise to have around-the-clock nursing care in every facility “as soon as I can possibly muster”.

Labor legislated the commitment and then had to perform an about-face after admitting workforce shortages meant some facilities wouldn’t be able to meet the new nursing requirements by the mandated July 1 deadline.

Speaking on ABC Insiders, Ms Wells said she didn’t regret making the promise even though she was reluctant to say when it would be met in full.

“It’s a systemic crippling (workforce) shortage that we inherited — that other countries like us face — but that shouldn’t mean that people have to accept a more feeble standard of care,” she said.

“I’m sure people are watching us from nursing homes this morning … I don’t regret making that promise.

“Because come July 1, even where we fall short, there will still be many, many more nurses providing many, many more hours of care in nursing homes than they ever would have been had we not.”

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells has discussed the sector on ABC’s Insiders program. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Staffing facilities with registered nurses 24/7 was a key recommendation from the royal commission into aged care, along with increasing care minutes to 200 minutes per resident per day.

Aged care homes that can’t meet the new nursing requirement by July 1 will be granted an exemption if they can satisfy the industry regulator they are trying to hire staff and have alternative care arrangements in place.

Last week, Ms Wells used an address at the National Press Club to suggest a new task-force set up to review funding arrangements for aged care should examine a taxpayer levy as one way to improve the troubled sector.

Labor now appears open to the idea of the levy — which was recommended by the royal commission into aged care — after rejecting the proposal before last year’s federal election.

Ms Wells on Sunday said the Albanese government was “still not advocating any particular proposal” and would consider the recommendations of the aged care funding task-force in six months’ time.

Speaking more than two years after the royal commission handed down its final report, Ms Wells said the work of the aged care task-force would be “short and sharp”.

A new task-force will review ways to fund aged care in Australia.

Ms Wells said the aged care levy was just one of “plenty” of funding proposals that had been presented to governments over the past two decades who had allowed aged care policy “to drift”.

“For me it is really personal … mum worked in aged care for the last 15 years before she retired and I worked in age care alongside her in uni for a few years,” she said.

“And I saw then some of the problems that I saw again walking back into the facilities after becoming Aged Care Minister.”

Ms Wells wouldn’t put a figure on how much extra funding the aged care sector would require.

“I think that would be putting the cart before the horse,” she said.

“We are coming at this from the perspective, how do we lift the standard of care in this country?”

Most residential care facilities in Australia are operated by not-for-profit or private providers, and subsidised by the federal government.

Before last year’s federal election, Labor promised a $2.5bn cash injection for the aged care sector.

Originally published as Aged Care Minister quizzed on around-the-clock nursing care and funding levy