Budget 2021: Aged care ‘needs a $7bn boost each year’

The Health Services Union and leading aged-care providers are urging the Morrison government to boost funding well above an extra $10bn over four years in next month’s budget.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: Philip Gostelow

The Health Services Union and leading aged-care providers are urging the Morrison government to boost funding well above an extra $10bn over four years in next month’s budget to repair and future-proof Australia’s aged-care system.

With Josh Frydenberg finalising the funding model for a record spend on aged care in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the sector says at least $7bn in extra investment a year would be required.

The Australian understands there was resistance inside government to increase the Medicare levy or introduce a special aged-care improvement levy to find the extra money.

HSU national president Gerard Hayes said the homecare system, which has been bogged down by backlogs, would require an extra $4.6bn annually to provide for current users, those on waiting lists and extra levels of care for those with higher needs.

“Scott Morrison and Richard Colbeck have a tsunami of need coming their way. They seem to think scrambling on to the closest sand dune will save them. It won’t,” he said.

The HSU, which last year launched a national aged-care campaign reaching 500,000 people in swing seats, is expected to bankroll a full-scale election ad blitz contingent on the budget and Labor’s budget-reply.

Mr Hayes, who represents 95,000 members of whom one-quarter are in aged care, said the HSU expected “much more of Anthony Albanese, who has a huge opportunity in his budget reply speech”.

“Aged-care jobs are underpaid, undervalued and overwhelmingly insecure, but they can and should be a pillar of working-class families and ­communities,” he said.

“Aged care must become an industry people can rely upon to build a career, raise a family and contribute to society.”

Australian Aged Care Collaboration representative Pat Sparrow, representing six aged-care peak bodies and more than 1000 organisations responsible for 70 per cent of aged-care services, said extra funding of about $10bn over four years would not be enough.

“The independent Grattan Institute believes we need at least $7bn extra investment a year to bring us up to the minimum standard needed, let alone the international average,” she said. “The truth is, investing in the care economy means we could deliver better quality support care to older Australians while offering enormous opportunity to address inequality, boost employment and help the economy grow.”