The Albanese Labor Government’s backflip on charging older Australians for essential personal care is a clear admission that Labor has botched the rollout of its aged care reforms.
Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care Anne Ruston said that older Australians should never have had to fight for access to personal care like showering, dressing and continence support.
“Removing charges for personal care is the right outcome, but these are essential services that should never have been classified as anything less. Labor got this wrong from day one,” Senator Ruston said.
“It’s disgraceful that Labor forced older Australians and their families to fight for access to what Minister Rae himself has described as ‘the basics of ageing with dignity.’”
This latest backflip comes after the Government caved to pressure and fast-tracked 80,000 additional home care packages to help ease the massive backlog of people waiting for a package, on top of the more than a hundred thousand waiting for an assessment.
“Once again, Anthony Albanese has only taken action after sustained public pressure, just like we have seen on home care packages, fuel security and the Royal Commission into Antisemitism.”
Senator Ruston said the Government must now answer serious questions about its delay.
“The Government must come clean on how much this backflip will cost the budget and whether that is the reason older Australians have been left waiting.
“Older Australians also deserve to know why the Government is waiting until October to implement this change. How many will go without essential care in the meantime?
“These older Australians have waited long enough. This backflip should come into effect today.”
The Coalition continues to call on the Albanese Government to fix its broader failures in the aged care system, which is leaving older Australians without the support they need.
On the latest data received by the Coalition, there were 131,366 people still waiting for a Support at Home package that they had been assessed as needing at the start of the year – an increase of more than 24,000 older Australians in just three months.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman is now also investigating Labor’s harmful aged care assessment algorithm, which is cutting support to older Australians with deteriorating conditions.
“One backflip does not fix Labor’s worsening aged care crisis,” Senator Ruston said.
“The Albanese Government must now urgently implement human override of its flawed assessment algorithm and address the growing waitlist crisis it continues to ignore.”
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