TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PENBERTHY, FIVEAA
12 February 2026
Topics: Aged care star ratings system, Labor’s skyrocketing home care wait list
E&OE…………………………………
David Penberthy: Almost a quarter of a million older Australians are still waiting to get assistance through the My Aged Care Home Care Packages. In addition to that, some five thousand people have actually died while waiting. This is a story that we've done before as part of Breaking at 8. We think it's a really important one, particularly for our listeners who are in that elderly age bracket. We always get a mountain of texts. But there's one other part of the Estimates that we wanted to spend a bit more time on because it goes to the star ratings that are created to help older people choose a home. Now Senator Anne Ruston, Liberal Senator for South Australia, she specifically focused on one facility, Disability SA's facility at Northgate here in Adelaide, which in a surprise order was found to be using restraints on dementia residents - you know, older people suffering from Alzheimer's being restrained, quite a scandalous practice. Yet despite that, it was still given five stars for compliance, which was excellent, and an overall rating of four, which equates to good. Senator Ruston, good morning.
Anne Ruston: Good morning.
David Penberthy: There's just so many angles to this story, but one of them is the star ratings. People rely on these to make decisions about where they should put their elderly parents, don't they?
Anne Ruston: Look, absolutely. And this is an issue that we've been prosecuting with the Government now for many, many Estimates, is that how can you have a situation where - you know, it wasn't just one non-compliance in relation to Northgate, it was two. This has been going on for more than 12 months. And as we sit here today, this facility has got a four-star rating overall, but as you say, a five-star for compliance. I would have thought the unlawful use of restraints on residents would at least stop them from having a five-star rating. In fact, it should have been quite significant. So, when people look at these star ratings - you know, when families are looking to put their loved ones into aged care - you'd expect when you look at these star ratings that it would actually tell you something meaningful, but instead it is completely misleading if a facility that is non-compliant, unlawfully non-compliant, is still getting five stars for compliance. I mean, no one can have any confidence in the star rating system if that's happening.
David Penberthy: When you were sort of teasing that out during the hearings, what sort of explanation did you get as to how that could be the case that they still got their ratings? Was it sort of saying, the centre's promising to work on these problems, or was it something like that?
Anne Ruston: Well, they said they had a series of things that they'd asked the centre to agree to - that they didn't take any more residents in while they were working through the non-compliance issues and they did a series other things. And that's absolutely appropriate, they should be doing that. But to maintain the five-star compliance rating, I think, is where this all falls down. But the other thing too is that we also found out yesterday that 40 per cent of aged care homes in metropolitan areas are not meeting the Government's staffing requirements, which are quite onerous, particularly as we know we're facing workforce shortages. And the Government is cutting funding per resident as a punishment to these facilities, but at the same time they're allowing a facility that, whilst it has full staffing, is unlawfully non-compliant to maintain their star rating. So it just seems to me that they've got everything around the wrong way. They've been punitive against facilities that are struggling because of workforce shortages, but they're not really doing anything against a facility that is being unlawful in its actions.
David Penberthy: On the question of the number of all these older Aussies waiting to get into any sort of assistance at home, did it feel like the Government is turning the corner on that? When we had the PM before, he was saying, they inherited this and a lot of it goes back to the sort of, you know, Turnbull Morrison era. But whatever the past history of it is, are there signs it is improving yet?
Anne Ruston: No, it is absolutely doing nothing apart from getting worse and getting worse at a rapid rate. The Prime Minister, quite frankly, is talking a load of rubbish. When he inherited the Government in 2022, we had basically put in place measures that had seen the wait list down to 28,000 and the wait time down to an average of three months. Yesterday, the Department admitted that the wait time at the moment is in excess of nine months for many residents, but that's actually quite misleading because at nine months you only get 60% of your package and you have to wait another three months before you get the full care that you've been assessed as needing. So, quite frankly, you're waiting 12 months for your care. The wait list itself has blown out to 131,000 older Australians. That's 24,000 more than when we asked them in November. And that doesn't take into account the hidden waitlist - the people who were actually waiting to be assessed even before they get on the waitlist, which is over a hundred thousand. So, you know, the Prime Minister can say whatever he likes, the statistics and the facts speak for themselves. This is a diabolical problem and it is getting worse at a rate that is terrifying.
David Penberthy: We appreciate you coming on amid all the chaos that's going on at the moment, Senator Ruston. We're not going to waste your time or our listeners by diving into that. Our view on it is wake me up when it is over, and I'm sure it will all be over one way or another soon, but we have been more interested in policy than personality here. So thanks for coming on about a very important topic that affects a lot of our listeners' lives.
Anne Ruston: My pleasure, thanks for having me.
ENDS
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