Leading aged care industry analysts have delivered a devastating assessment of the Albanese Government's aged care access crisis, projecting Australia will experience a net reduction in residential aged care beds by 2030.
The projection is catastrophic given the Health Department's own estimates show Australia needs an additional 50,000 residential aged care places by 2030, revealing the Government has completely lost control of aged care supply.
In addition, 238,000 older Australians are currently waiting for home care packages as of October 2025. The NACA paper estimates Labor's Support at Home program will barely dent the crisis with 60,000 still waiting in June 2026 even after the government releases 83,000 new packages.
The NACA discussion paper notes: "While this current situation is causing widespread concern the short and medium term future look even worse, as the numbers of people entering their 80s increases substantially over the next two decades."
Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care Senator Anne Ruston said the findings exposed Labor's aged care rationing as a complete policy failure.
"Three weeks ago, it was revealed there were just 578 aged care beds added last year when 10,600 were needed. Now industry is warning we'll go backwards, actually losing beds while demand explodes," Senator Ruston said.
"We now have a perfect storm: shrinking residential aged care capacity, hundreds of thousands of older Australians left waiting up to 15 months for home care, and Commonwealth Home Support Program services completely overwhelmed.
"The result is devastating – older Australians languishing in hospital beds, surgical waitlists blowing out, and states bearing the cost of the Albanese Government’s failure."
Senator Ruston said the Government's rationed release of packages through the Support at Home program would not resolve the crisis.
"We know 238,000 older Australians were left languishing on the wait list for support to stay in their homes because Labor refused to release new packages," Senator Ruston said.
“NACA has made it clear that while releasing the additional 83,000 packages may reduce the backlog, it will not reduce the harm to those 60,000 people who will still be left waiting for the care they have been assessed as needing.
“These are not just statistics, they're someone's mum or dad being denied care. The result is thousands of older Australians left to languish in hospital beds simply because they cannot access the aged care support required to go home.”
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