Most new aged-care recipients on just 60 per cent of ordinary rate

Almost all aged care packages released since November delivered 60 per cent funding while ministers claimed compliance with parliamentary votes for full support.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston during Senate estimates on Wednesday. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

Almost all of the aged-care home care packages the government released after pressure from the opposition earlier this year were funded at 60 per cent of the full package value, a move Labor says is in line with the law but the Coalition claims amounts to a broken promise.

None of the packages released in the 2024-25 financial year were this 60 per cent value “interim” package but this shot up to 93 per cent in the packages released since November, the Health and Aged Care Department told Senate estimates.

In September, Health Minister Mark Butler and Aged Care Minister Sam Rae were forced to release funding immediately for 20,000 home care packages.

In reforming the system, Labor initially said it would not release any more packages until the system changeover in November, but a waiting list blowout and intense Coalition pressure forced the government’s hand.

But on Wednesday the department revealed that almost all of these packages were “interim”, delivering just 60 per cent of the value. And the determination as to when someone would get a 60 per cent value interim package instead of the full value package was made not by the department but by the minister, the department said.

“The minister makes the determination, and that’s done in consultation with the minister for finance around the method by which it applies,” a department official said.

The department said this interim arrangement for people to be on a reduced rate of pay at the start of their home care package was not “uncommon”, even in the previous system that kicked in before November.

“Under a home care package system, it was not uncommon for people to be assessed at a particular home care package but allocated at a lower level until such funding was available, or a number of those packages,” an official said. “So, it’s a different mechanism of doing something where people get a step entry into the aged-care system, but it’s a similar concept under Support at Home (the new system) with interim packages.”

The department said the average recipient stayed for 10 weeks on the 60 per cent value interim package but that it was expedited under an “urgent” classification.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston questioned whether this would have been the ordinary understanding of the changes brought in by Labor in September.

“So when the Senate made the determination that 83,000 packages were to be released in the 2025-26 year, and that was voted on in the parliament, do you think that the average Australian would have thought that they were only going to be released at 60 per cent of their full value?” Senator Ruston asked.

Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy – representing the Health Minister in the Senate – told Senator Ruston the government was “complying with the act in terms of amendments to the act, and certainly in terms of our focus on the 83,000 new places this financial year”.

“I’m not sure that answered my question,” Senator Ruston retorted.

“I’ll beg to differ,” Senator McCarthy said.

In a separate statement, Senator Ruston accused Labor “of short-changing older Australians”.

“When the minister fronted cameras and promised 83,000 new packages, he failed to mention older Australians would only get 60 per cent of what they need and deserve,” she said.

“This government is short-changing older Australians. Some will permanently lose up to 13 per cent of the funding the government’s own assessment said they need – and Labor never told them.”