TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH GRAEME GOODINGS, FIVEAA
23 October 2025
Topics: Labor’s home care wait list blow out, hospital bed block
E&OE…………………………………
GRAEME GOODINGS: It has blown up by a further twenty six percent in the past three months. The figures come from the Senate Estimates. Shadow Health and Aged Care Minister, Anne Ruston joins us now. Senator, good morning.
ANNE RUSTON: Good morning.
GRAEME GOODINGS: Didn't the Government promise 83,000 new packages way back in July?
ANNE RUSTON: Absolutely. As part of their election commitment, they promised 83,000 packages starting to be delivered from the 1st of July. And we found out in estimates not one new aged care package was delivered to an older Australian from the 1st of July until the 30th of September, despite them having promised to do so. So, this has added to the incredible blowout in not just the wait list but the wait times. Older Australians are now waiting three times longer to get access to the care they've been assessed as needing. And we've seen the wait list blow out by four times in little over two and a half years. So, this is a really sad indictment and a terrible outcome for older Australians.
GRAEME GOODINGS: So, what number of people are impacted are we looking at this stage?
ANNE RUSTON: Well, we've found out in Estimates that 121,909 people on the 30th of September have been assessed as needing care and had not received any care at all. We also found out that a further 116,000 people were waiting to be assessed for a package - that's people who their doctor or hospital have determined that they need some assistance and are waiting for the assessment to determine what exactly it is will support them to be able to stay in their own home. So, a combined total of over 238,000 older Australians as we're talking today are waiting to receive care to enable them to stay in their own home. And this means - that's why we've got older Australians in our hospitals around the country. You know, 2,5000 older Australians right now are in hospital beds because they're not receiving the care that they could receive if they were given a package to enable them to go home, which is better for the budget, but so much better for the person.
GRAEME GOODINGS: Has the Government tried to explain or justify the blow out in numbers? Has Health Minister Mark Butler had anything to say?
ANNE RUSTON: We've had very little explanation as to why they've allowed this to happen. A matter of two and a half years ago, as a result of all of the packages that were released under the previous Coalition Government, I might say, we got the wait list down to about 28,000 and older Australians were waiting somewhere between one and three months to get packages. Now, I accept there still was more work to be done. We'd like everyone to get a package as soon as they're assessed for it. And in the space of two and a half years, the Government has withheld care, purposely. I mean, they cannot deny that they actually have not provided care packages - they are rationing care to older Australians, because they're not releasing as many packages as the number of people who are being assessed as needing them. I mean, this is absolutely a crisis of the Government's own making and they need to explain to older Australians why they're rationing care or denying them care when they themselves, the Government, have assessed them as needing that care.
GRAEME GOODINGS: So they've not tried to justify it in any way, shape or form?
ANNE RUSTON: Not at all, and it's really quite distressing. We forced them kicking and screaming back in August to actually release the 83,000 packages that they promised to release during the election campaign. Not one of those packages had been released when we forced them, with the support of the crossbench and the Greens in the Senate, to actually have to release them. I mean, I find it really quite incredible that the Government could tell older Australians that they were going to release these packages and then just simply not do it.
GRAEME GOODINGS: I believe many older Australians have died in just in the past year alone waiting for a package.
ANNE RUSTON: Well, we heard some terrible stories when we did the inquiry. Margaret, magnificent lady who was brave enough to come tell the story of her husband Tony. He was assessed as needing a package in the beginning of 2024. In May 2025, he entered hospital, still having not received his package. He received the package two days before he died. And she said to us that she didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd eventually got that package. So, he went for nearly 18 months with no care. He had Parkinson's disease and he died two days after eventually receiving the package that he'd been assessed as needing. These are the stories of older Australians around the country that we hear every single day. I don't know how the Government can't be hearing them.
GRAEME GOODINGS: It's enough, I mean, to suggest that, you know, 83,000 packages that were supposed to be released haven't been released. Could there be any other factor involved? Is there just not the staff to carry out the work needed?
ANNE RUSTON: Well, that was one of the the things that the Government tried to blame the sector, saying the sector didn't have capacity, the sector wasn't ready. So, during the inquiry, we got all of the big players in, and the small players, and we spoke to them about whether they would be able to absorb the additional packages, and every single one of them said that they were more than capable of gearing up to be able to provide these packages very quickly. In fact, they'd already geared up for the 1st of July when the Government actually deferred the implementation of the Act till the 1st of November. So, the sector was quite categorical that they were ready to be able to provide these packages to older Australians. So, you know, that was an argument that was put forward, but was completely blown apart by the sector themselves, saying they were more than adequately capable of providing the packages if they were released. The Government just needed to release them.
GRAEME GOODINGS: Other than highlighting the issue, is there any more that you can do?
ANNE RUSTON: Well, obviously, we were really pleased to have a win for older Australians by forcing the Government into releasing these packages by legislating to make them do it. I mean, they still were pretty slow off the mark. We still don't know whether they've released all of the 20,000 packages that we demanded be released in September and October. We certainly know that they hadn't released even half of them by the time the 1st of October came by. We also had demanded that the whole 83,000 be released in [this] financial year.
But I think one of the things that this told the Government is, if you're going to do these things - tell Australians a story and then not follow through with it - we have the power in the Senate to force the Government to take action, which is what we did, and we'll continue to do that if they continue to break their promises - and to a cohort of older, you know, older Australians who are needing care, to break your promise to that cohort of people I think is just disgraceful.
GRAEME GOODINGS: Yes, well, hopefully it isn't falling on deaf ears now and we get some sort of action fairly soon. Shadow Health and Aged Care Minister, Senator Anne Ruston, thanks for your time today.
ENDS
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