SENATOR THE HON ANNE RUSTON

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

MEDIA RELEASE

NOWHERE TO HIDE: DEATHS ON LABOR’S HOME CARE WAITLIST NEARLY DOUBLE

Thursday, 8^th October 2026

E&OE……………………………………

More than 17 older Australians died every day waiting for home care in 2025-26, an increase of more than a third on the previous year, and almost double the number of Labor’s first year in office. In total, more than 6,400 older Australians died waiting, a figure the Albanese Government has been refusing to hand over to the Senate.

New data published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing confirms 6,436 older Australians died while waiting in the home care priority queue last financial year.

That tragic number is up 34 per cent in just 12 months and almost double (up 93 per cent) the 3,337 deaths recorded in Labor’s first full year in office.

The figures have emerged only after the Government failed to comply with two Senate Orders for the Production of Documents moved by Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator Anne Ruston. Labor also dodged questions in Question Time and at the Senate inquiry into Support at Home.

“Anthony Albanese promised to put the care back into aged care. Instead, as the former Inspector-General of Aged Care warned, the way this Government is implementing aged care reform is causing harm,” Senator Ruston said.

“Rather than fixing the system, Labor has put its energy into avoiding scrutiny. And it is older Australians and their families who are paying the price.

“The extent to which the Government tried to hide this information from the public is appalling. The Prime Minister and his Ministers clearly just didn’t want older Australians and their families to know the truth.”

In 2021, Anthony Albanese said: “The idea that you can have an approved aged care package and then die waiting to actually receive it is just extraordinary.” Yet this tragedy has only deepened under Labor’s mismanagement of aged care.

Deaths on the home care waitlist have risen every year since Labor’s first full year in office: from 3,337 in 2022-23, to 3,383 in 2023-24, to 4,812 in 2024-25, and now 6,436 in 2025-26.

In a further insult to Australian families, the Department’s report claims the deaths are

“proportionate to broader demographic trends” and that the “proportion of departing the SAHPS or NPS due to death on the queue” had remained stable. But under Labor, the share of people dying while waiting has risen from 1.7 per cent to 2.0 per cent.

“Everybody on the wait list is a person; they’re not a statistic or a number,” Senator Ruston said.

“The Albanese Government would be well advised to stop talking about whether something is statistically relevant, or otherwise proportional, and to actually think about the people that are being impacted by those decisions.”

The Coalition is calling on the Albanese Government to comply with the Senate’s orders in full, release how long the 6,436 older Australians who died had been waiting, and commit to publishing deaths on the home care waitlist every quarter so Australians never again have to rely on the Senate to drag this information out.

ENDS