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

Sunday 1 November 2026

ONE YEAR SINCE LABOR TOOK THE HUMANITY OUT OF AGED CARE

Today marks one year since the Albanese Labor Government’s Support at Home program began. Anthony Albanese promised to put the care back into aged care. Instead, Labor took the humanity out of the system, handed older Australians’ care to a computer and cut $727 million from home care while older Australians waited.

Under Labor’s new system, a computer algorithm decides how much support an older person receives. No qualified assessor can override it.

The independent Commonwealth Ombudsman has found Labor’s approach “unreasonable”, and that “a reasonable person would… lack confidence that the system is in fact fair and consistent.” The Ombudsman recommended a qualified assessor be able to override the algorithm. Labor refused to support the Coalition’s Bill to restore human override, and kept the Ombudsman’s draft report hidden from the Senate while it pushed its own weaker pathway through the Parliament.

Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care Senator Anne Ruston said older Australians had been let down at every turn by Anthony Albanese and his close confidant Mark Butler.

“Before the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese declared: ‘We will look after our older Australians. No one held back and no one left behind.’ His Government, he said, would put the care back into aged care. Instead, it took the humanity out of it,” Senator Ruston said.

“Older Australians are now waiting longer, paying more and getting less.

“And while they waited, Labor cut $727 million from home care. That money was budgeted for older Australians’ care, and Labor banked it as a budget saving.”

The list of Labor’s aged care failures continues to grow:

• The waiting list keeps growing. At 30 June 2026, almost 107,000 older Australians were waiting for Support at Home funding, up 6,786 in just three months, and standard waiting times remained at about nine months, well short of the three months promised.

• Labor cut $727 million from home care. Officials confirmed at Senate Estimates that $727 million budgeted for Support at Home in the program’s first eight months was never spent. That is enough to fund more than 9,000 of the highest-level home care packages for a year.

• More older Australians are dying waiting for care. In 2025-26, 6,436 older Australians died while waiting for care, up 34% on the year before. In 2021, Mr Albanese said: “The idea that you can have an approved aged care package and then die waiting to actually receive it is just extraordinary.”

• Those who do get a package are short-changed. More than 90 per cent are started on an ‘interim package’ of just 60 per cent of the funding they have been assessed as needing. More than 52,000 people were put on these rationed packages in the last three months alone.

• Red tape is driving up the cost of care. Former Inspector-General of Aged Care Natalie Siegel-Brown has revealed that a $50 pair of crutches cost $1,800 after mandated assessments. Meals on Wheels says the same meal, delivered by the same volunteers, costs about 40 per cent more under Support at Home than under the Commonwealth Home Support Programme. Every extra dollar spent on paperwork is a dollar not spent on care.

• The sector is on its knees. Ageing Australia has told the Senate inquiry that, for the first time, providers are on average losing money on every package. The Department’s own financial data shows 50 home care providers left the sector in the June quarter, up from 38 the quarter before.

“One year on, Labor’s legacy is a computer that says no, a waiting list that keeps growing, $727 million in care that never arrived and a sector that can’t keep its doors open,” Senator Ruston said.

“Labor must restore human override, end the 60 per cent rationing, deliver the care it has already budgeted for and cut the red tape that is stealing care from older Australians.”

ENDS