Transcript: Interview with Ali Moore, ABC Melbourne Drive - 2 September 2025

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH ALI MOORE, ABC MELBOURNE DRIVE

2 September 2025

Topics:  Aged Care Bill, new rights-based aged care framework, skyrocketing home care wait list, Labor’s refusal to release new home care packages

E&OE…………………………………

Ali Moore: Well, Anne Ruston is the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator for South Australia, also the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Anne Ruston, welcome to Drive. 

Anne Ruston: Thanks, Ali. 

Ali Moore: Can you just give us an update first as to where you are up to with discussions around this bill? 

Anne Ruston: Okay, so the bill is currently in the Senate. It's been through the House of Representatives. We're currently doing what we refer to as second reading speeches, where people put their points of view on the record. I must apologise to your listeners, I'm in Parliament. The bells are ringing. 

Ali Moore: I can hear them. As long as you don't have to go, that's fine. 

Anne Ruston: No, no, I took some leave just so I could speak to you and your listeners. So tomorrow, we'll go into the nuts and bolts stage of this particular Act where, hopefully with the support of the Greens and certainly David Pocock and maybe some other crossbenchers, we're seeking to put pressure on the Government to come good with their promise about releasing home care packages to older Australians. Because the Government, for some inexplicable reason, has stopped releasing home care packages to older Australians, despite the fact that we have an ever-increasing wait list for them. The times for people getting these packages is blowing out. You heard from David, you know, that these are real people who are needing care, they're either stuck in hospital, they are not getting the care that they need, simply because the Government is refusing to release these packages, and there is no reason why the Government can't release packages today. 

Ali Moore: So Anne Ruston, am I right that essentially these are packages that are part of the reforms that were going to take part earlier in the year but have been delayed until the 1st of November, and so the reason we're not getting the release of them is because of that delay to those key reforms. 

Anne Ruston: No, that's actually not correct. The releasing of packages is not dependent on the new Act. The Government could release packages today. We heard from the Department that all they need for packages to be released is for the Minister to give the say so. So, the Government is actually choosing not to release packages when the sector has said they're more than capable of delivering them. The Department can continue to provide the backup service for the delivery of these packages. Quite clearly there are many, many tens of thousands of older Australians who have been assessed as needing these packages. And quite simply, all that's happening at the moment is the Government is choosing not to release the packages now. They could do it today. 

Ali Moore: So this piece of legislation which, you know, more voting will happen tomorrow as you just said, second reading speeches – If the release of packages is not dependent on that legislation and you go using it as a bargaining chip, we won't pass in the Senate if you don't release, is that how the debate is going? 

Anne Ruston: Well, we've been very clear that we need this legislation through because, quite frankly, without this legislation, the Act can't come into being on the 1st of November. The Government's known this for probably close to seven months and chose to do nothing about it. So, we're not going to stand in the way of this bill going through because it is so important to get this rights-based Act that we all support and the framework to come into play. What we are going to do though, and through this, is we're going to use this piece of legislation to pass amendments to say that the Government must release packages immediately, and that's an amendment put forward by Senator Pocock. We're also going to put forward amendments of our own to say they must release additional packages before the end of the year, 40,000 in total between us, our amendment and Senator Pockock's, and then another 43,000 packages in the first part of 2026. And we're doing that because we think that the Government should be, well, we think the Government should not be withholding support to older Australians. They've got the capacity for this to happen, and they simply, by their own choice, aren't doing it. 

Ali Moore: That said though, I mean, we've got an enormous number of people who are waiting even to be assessed, let alone waiting to have a package fulfilled. Have all of those appeared in the last three and a half years? I mean, how much of that waiting list and that wait for services was built up under your government? 

Anne Ruston: The measures that were put in place by the last Coalition Government saw the wait list for home care packages go down to under 30,000. It was down around 28,000, and the average wait time for Australians for all packages was somewhere between one and three months. In the last two years alone, we've seen that increase to at least 87,000. We believe it's more likely over 100,000 now because the Government won't give us the data. And on average, older Australians are waiting somewhere between 9 and 12 months to get access to a package they've been assessed as needing. And quite frankly, if you're 97 years old and being told that you need a home care package, you don't have time on your side and a year is a very long time. 

Ali Moore: No, and even if you're younger than that, indeed a year is an incredibly long time. You're listening to Anne Ruston who's the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care. We've been talking about aged care packages and the call in the Senate for them to be released. Anne Ruston, can I ask you a very different question? I'm not sure whether you've had time today to catch up with the fact that the Premier of Victoria was holding a media conference today in a park in a suburb, in a Melbourne suburb and it was gate crashed. The media conference was gate crashed by a pretty well-known neo-nazi leader Thomas Sewell. He's since been arrested by police for an unrelated issue. They are investigating something else and no charges have been laid. But it's just raised the question of, do you feel safe as a politician? Our politicians in this country can still not, maybe not as much as any 20 years ago, but certainly you still go out and about, you can do your meet and greets, you can walk down the street during election time. Do you still feel safe doing that? 

Anne Ruston: Well, I think scenes like we saw today, you know, are really confronting. And they do raise the very question about, you know, where is Australia going, if these kinds of things are happening? But, you know, I absolutely have to give a shout out to the AFP who do the most incredible job in keeping us safe. And myself, I've never had any reason to feel unsafe because I have just the most incredible confidence and trust in the AFP and the things they put in place to protect us. But it just is such a reminder of the importance of restoring social cohesion in this country, and what happened today, the little bit that I've seen of it as I've been in and out of the Chamber, it's just completely unacceptable in a country like Australia. 

Ali Moore: Do you see any argument for the National Socialist Network to be listed as a terrorist organisation? 

Anne Ruston: Well, I mean, obviously those details are something that would be for the Government and those that are in the security division. But, you know, the one thing I think is that there is no place on our streets for intolerance. There's no place on our streets of disrespect or violence or just - basically, we just need to return to a country that was built on unity. We need to make sure that we are a country that continues to be respectful of each other's opinions, and that's not something that we're seeing at the moment. And so, I think it's really important that we refocus on social cohesion, that we have strong leadership, and that goes to the Prime Minister of this country. Because I think some of the scenes we've seen of recent times are things that none of us want to be seeing. 

Ali Moore: Anne Ruston, thanks for joining us. 

ENDS