SENATOR THE HON ANNE RUSTON

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH JAIMEE ROGERS, THE JAIMEE ROGERS SHOW, SKY NEWS

Monday, 5 October 2026

Topics: Aged care pricing and assessments; private health insurance rebates; credit card surcharges; cost of living.

E&OE……………………………………

JAIMEE ROGERS: Well, let's go to Anne Ruston in Adelaide, where I spoke to her a little earlier. Well, Senator, I want to start with a Daily Telegraph investigation that exposed extraordinary price gouging in aged care. Unlike the NDIS, there are no price caps, and the government was supposed to introduce them back on July 1 and decided to, I don't know, pause the plan. And now we're seeing enormous markups, and older Australians are burning through their care packages. Has the government effectively now created a free-for-all that's left older Australians paying the price?

SENATOR RUSTON: Well, the government has created a whopping great mess. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Older Australians who were supposed to be grandfathered through from their previous packages into the new system are finding that their packages are going, you know, very little distance in comparison to what they used to. We've now seen an incredible amount of red tape and bureaucratic burden placed on providers, which ultimately gets passed on to the person who's receiving the service.

I think it's time for the government to go back to the drawing board and have a really serious think about all of the issues that they were, quite frankly, warned about when they chose to push this legislation through the Parliament. They need to actually have a very serious think about all of the challenges that are before them, but most particularly the fact that older Australians are paying so much more for exactly the same thing that they used to be paying, you know, sometimes 20, 30, 40 per cent less for than they're paying now.

JAIMEE ROGERS: And within this investigation, they found that some providers are tacking on heavy admin fees, sometimes as much as $200 just to book in for that service. And this is a system that's supposed to be designed to care for older Australians, not fleece them. And I know you said it's time for them to get back to the drawing board. But I just keep wondering about Sam Rae, who's the minister in charge of the aged care portfolio. How bad does this have to get before he actually stands up and says, 'Right, we've got a problem and we need to urgently fix it'?

SENATOR RUSTON: Well, quite clearly, he is not prepared to stand up and accept responsibility for the failings that are in his portfolio area. I mean, here is another example where older Australians are paying so much more for something that they previously paid so much less for.

But we also have seen him completely refuse to accept the fact that his computer-generated algorithm, which is determining people's care needs and has no human override, is fundamentally flawed. But he still keeps pushing on and saying, 'No, no, no. It's fine. It is fine,' while older Australians are being told that their care needs are well below what a clinical assessor has determined their needs are, because they've actually sat in front of them and seen them.

This is a government that's great with the headline but not very good at actually rolling their sleeves up and getting the work done to make sure that older Australians are getting the care they need, when they need it, at a price that's affordable — not just for the older Australian who's paying in some instances, but also for the taxpayer who funds the lion's share of aged care.

JAIMEE ROGERS: Now, Anthony Albanese was at a press conference during the week, and he said something that caught my attention when he was asked about where savings were coming from in his budget. Take a listen.

PRIME MINISTER: We have savings that will come before the Parliament. The test is — just one example — the private health insurance changes, the rebate, which will mean that a 65-year-old is treated the same as a 64-year-old. But what we've had from the Coalition in the Parliament is opposition to that. You can't say, 'We want more savings,' and then oppose every saving.

JAIMEE ROGERS: And he's literally standing there bragging about finding savings. But that's not cutting government waste. It's literally passing the bill on to older Australians. And I'm glad to hear that the Coalition has been saying no to this. How can he possibly think this is right?

SENATOR RUSTON: Well, it absolutely is unbelievable that the Prime Minister can stand there and look down the camera lens when he knows darn well that Australian taxpayers will actually end up possibly forking out more than they currently are in support of private health, simply because this is a cost shift from Jim Chalmers' federal budget onto the budgets of the states and territories and onto older Australians, half of whom we now know are actually pensioners.

Now, if ever there was a group of people in our nation who could ill afford an increase in cost-of-living pressure, it is pensioners at the moment. I mean, I don't know how Anthony Albanese can stand there with a straight face and actually make this sound like there was some great virtue in ripping off pensioners and placing a greater burden on taxpayers in states and territories. And somehow that's okay so that Jim's budget bottom line might get a quick fix for a minute. But it's not a long-term fix, and older Australians will end up in the public health system.

JAIMEE ROGERS: In a system that's already severely under pressure. And it's worth noting that I put this video out on social, and there were just so many distressed people in the comments coming through. And on top of pensioners and older Australians doing it tough, the other area is small business, with the passing on of credit card surcharges ending last week. What are you hearing from businesses about the impact this will have on them?

SENATOR RUSTON: Well, the banks are continuing to charge small businesses for the provision of these EFTPOS and credit card services. So the business has got to absorb them in some way, shape or form, and inevitably it ends up having to go back to the person who's buying the product of that particular business. So this idea that Anthony Albanese is telling Australians that he's saving them these costs of credit card surcharges is absolutely ridiculous, because we know they have to be passed on.

But I think the thing that probably stuck with me more than anything was the fact that the ATO has decided that it's not going to allow people to pay their tax bills using their credit card, because the ATO doesn't want to have to absorb the costs of credit card surcharges. So the hypocrisy is just unbelievable. And we know that small businesses are doing it tough at the moment and often use their credit card as a cash flow mechanism while they're waiting for their bills to be paid, while they are paying the taxman.

So, I mean, this is just more smoke and mirrors from Anthony Albanese, who hasn't got a clue how the economy works or how small business works and the struggles that they're facing at the moment.

JAIMEE ROGERS: I think we're seeing firsthand, Senator, the problem when you've got those in charge in government who don't have real-world experience and don't know what it means to just absorb a few other dollars here and there. What's that going to do? And I think that's what we're seeing playing out when you've got a Treasurer whose PhD is in Paul Keating and they've actually had to run a business. We're seeing this impact now, aren't we?

SENATOR RUSTON: Oh, look, we absolutely are. And, I mean, when you're watching the Treasurer, you can see that he is a man who is really failing at his job. And you can see it in the things that he's saying and the way that he's fronting the media. I mean, he has made a complete botch of the finances of Australia. And the reality is that every single Australian knows that, because they're feeling it in their hip pocket.

But now they're just playing around with these silly little games, like the credit card surcharge piece, to try and somehow continue to con older Australians into thinking they're actually doing something. But Australians aren't stupid. They know their government is failing, and hopefully Jim Chalmers has started to get the message that having a PhD in Paul Keating is certainly not helping our economy at the moment.

JAIMEE ROGERS: Well, Senator, I will leave it there. I do appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

SENATOR RUSTON: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

ENDS