Transcript: Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC - 14 May 2026

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, 2CC

14 May 2026

Topics: Health and aged care budget measures, home care wait list crisis, Urgent Care Clinics, hospital pressures, Budget in Reply

E&OE…………………………………

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The thing that I guess is most dangerous about this Federal Budget is it's not just about class warfare anymore, it's now about age warfare. It's about pitting younger Australians against older Australians, and whilst he constantly says "nobody left behind, nobody held back" – well, in this budget, I think it's older Australians that have well and truly been left behind and held back. Senator Anne Ruston is the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care and joins us now. Senator, good morning.

ANNE RUSTON: Good morning, Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Older Australians have well and truly been held back here, but it's that pitting one against another that really I find dangerous about this.

ANNE RUSTON: Look, absolutely, and you make the comment about class warfare – that's pitting people that actually don't know each other against each other, which is bad enough in itself. But in this instance, Anthony Albanese is actually seeking to pit families against each other, like he's pitting my mum and dad against my kids. And so that's what is so, so wrong. And this idea that somehow he's squaring up on intergenerational equity – what Anthony Albanese is doing with a lot of his changes is denying younger Australians the opportunities to build wealth that he himself has had. I mean, he's built this huge wealth portfolio in terms of his housing portfolio on the back of the opportunities that some of these particular tax measures afforded him. He's now going to deny younger Australians the same opportunity. I mean, what he's doing is the complete reverse of what he is saying he's doing. He is actually punishing younger Australians, and at the same time punishing older Australians. I mean, this just could not be worse.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: There's a headline figure of a 3.7 billion dollar package focusing on infrastructure growth and structural change to home care, but correct me if I'm wrong, this is just a re-announcement of the backflip from a couple of weeks ago that you put pressure on the Government to change things like a billion dollars to fully fund things like showering and dressing and continence support, which was almost unaffordable for some older Australians under the previous policy.

ANNE RUSTON: Look, absolutely. What they've basically done is whacked older Australians to fix the mess that they had caused to older Australians because of their refusal to listen. So, all we've seen with the announcements and the re-announcements around some of the things that are going to support older Australians has been announcing things that they should have done in the first place, trying to fix up a mess because they have denied older Australians access to care, withholding home care packages, forcing older Australians to be stuck in hospitals when they should be back at home, not incentivising or enabling residential homes to be built for older Australians that need that extra level of care. And how are they proposing to pay for it? By whacking older Australians who have scrimped and saved to keep their private health insurance so they're not a burden on the public system and our already overburdened hospital system. So, what he's going to do is going to force them to no longer be able to afford to pay that, and they're going to have to line up at our public hospitals. Like here in the ACT, we know that you can't get elective surgery. We know we've got a ramping crisis. This is just the stupidest policy that I've ever seen that's going to hurt Australians, particularly vulnerable ones.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Because the thing that it’s one of those false economy things where you think, okay, well, we're saving some money here by ripping this rebate away from Australians over 65, so we'll now force them into the public system and put pressure on an already bloated public hospital system bursting at the seams, which makes no sense at all. But that seems to be always the way when it comes to health funding with this government.

ANNE RUSTON: Well, the thing that is actually most egregious about this, Stephen, is the Government was handed an independent report two years ago that said if you take away the private health insurance rebate from older Australians, you will end up costing the taxpayer more. Because moving Australians from where the private health insurer is paying for their healthcare and putting them into the public system means taxpayers get to pay it. They, by their very nature, are younger Australians, so it blows their whole intergenerational inequity argument out of the water. But that report, the Finity report, actually said if you do this, it will cost taxpayers more. So this is just the greatest con I have ever seen by Anthony Albanese and his government that is forcing older Australians to have a worse health outcome at the same time as costing taxpayers more. It is just stupid.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: One of the things that always strikes me about – and it's a policy of not only the Federal Government but state and territory governments,  we see it here in the ACT - is these permanent Urgent Care Clinics or nurse-led walk-in centres. We've got $1.8 billion to make all of these 137 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics permanent, which is great, but these things seem to just create bottlenecks for the health system.

ANNE RUSTON: I mean, the irony of all this, Stephen, is that whilst the Coalition absolutely supports Australians getting affordable and timely access to primary care – nothing could be more important – the Government is going to roll out more money to Urgent Care Clinics at the same time that they're forcing older Australians into the public system, which is going put more pressure on our hospitals. It's sort of a bit like, you know, we give with one hand and we take away with the other. I mean, they have had no overarching policy consistency in this budget. It's just we'll grab from here and we'll throw it over there and then we'll grab from here and we throw it there. And ultimately, this budget actually delivers worst outcomes for the majority of Australians.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now, there was something that I – one of the line items here, an asset testing exemption for residential aged care asset testing, and it's only 3.2 million dollars, so it's not a lot of money in the overall scheme of things, but to exempt stolen generation redress scheme payments from the asset testing so people that have been paid money by the Government will have that money exempted from their asset testing. I mean, how does that make sense?

ANNE RUSTON: I think that looking at that particular one was around consistency of how redress payments are usually dealt with in government means testing. There was an inconsistency in this one. So I think maybe that one was actually trying to make sure that it was consistent. And one of the things I think we have to understand, particularly with redress payment for survivors of institutionalised child sexual abuse, is the fear that they have about going back into an institutionalised setting is something that needs to be considered. And many of these people who have had these redress payments are now coming into that age where they're requiring more aged healthcare. So, I think there is a bit of a nuance on that one.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Okay, one of the concerns I have with any federal funding, particularly into areas that are controlled by the states, and a classic example is this is the Housing Future Fund. I mean, it's all well and good for the Federal Government to say we're going to spend this money and then hope that the states and territories and local governments implement the policy. But we've now got $25 billion for public hospitals, which nobody would begrudge that because we know we need to invest in our public hospital system, but it's that disconnect and the duplication that always ends up almost negating the money.

ANNE RUSTON: Well, the stupidity of the $25 billion additional funding was the fact that the reason that it was needed to be added to the already $220 billion that's paid to the states and territories for their hospital funding agreement is that the majority of the reason that has had to happen is because of the Albanese Labor Government's failure in aged care, because we've got so many older Australians who are stuck in our hospitals, which our states and territory are paying for via this funding mechanism, because there is nowhere else for them to go because the Albanese Government isn't releasing home care packages. So once again, the federal taxpayer is forking out for the failures of the Federal Government. If they'd just done what they should have done and supported older Australians with some low-level care to keep them in their own homes, they wouldn't be having to fork out all this additional funding all the time to fix up their own messes.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Well, let's talk about those home care packages because I'm only spit balling here but I reckon the last five times you and I have spoken we've talked about the fact that there is not only a backlog but there's all of these aged care packages that have been promised that aren't being rolled out. Have we ever gotten to the bottom of why the Government won't roll out the packages they say they've funded?

ANNE RUSTON: Well, of course, they're not admitting to why they're not doing it. But anybody who's been watching this like you and I have for a very long time, one would suggest the reason they're withholding these packages is to protect Jim Chalmer's bottom line on his budget. There is no other reason why they wouldn't be releasing these packages. And if you have a look at the Budget on Tuesday night, it was impossible to find any real commitment to new packages. We know the wait lists are in excess of 200,000 older Australians either waiting for their package or waiting to be assessed for their packages. These are older Australians that are ultimately ending up in our hospitals and there was really nothing in the Budget that would suggest that they're going to release any more new packages in this financial year. I don't know what they're doing, but the only thing you can assume is they're protecting Jim's bottom line.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I want to put to you a quote that the Federal Passenger, as I like to call him, made at his address to the National Press Club yesterday. He said that the Albanese Government is the last government standing in the sensible centre in the Western world.

ANNE RUSTON: Well, I got to say, I don't think that Jim's budget Tuesday was a sensible centre budget. I think it was a budget that actively pitted one generation of Australians against another generation of Australians. I think it was a budget that tried to use an argument of intergenerational inequity, which basically all it's done is meant that it's a higher taxing budget. It's a budget that doesn't deliver what it's promised. It's a budget that shows that Anthony Albanese flat out lies to Australians. The amount of times he said before the election there would be no changes to trust treatments, there'd be no change to negative gearing, there'd no change as to CGT, and what have we seen? We've seen all of these changes come in and somehow he thinks it's a virtue that they've lied to Australians and now they've changed their minds. And all this is a tax grab on Australians because they've failed to manage the Budget.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Angus Taylor gets his chance to respond tonight, and we'll talk to him at this time tomorrow morning on the program. Is the Liberal Party going to use this opportunity to reclaim its economic credentials and stop all the fringe rubbish that One Nation seems to be occupying?

ANNE RUSTON: Well, certainly, I think what you'll see tonight from Angus is a very strong [Budget-in-Reply] that puts Australians first, puts Australians and Australia first in everything that we're doing. I think he'll focus very much on the big issue at the moment before many Australians, and that is about getting access to housing. The Labor Government has completely failed with all its housing policies. We need to stop dealing with issues of demand. We need to get more houses built, and I think you'll see Angus focus very strongly on getting rid of all these toxic taxes that Albanese is now throwing at Australians to fix up his budget mess. Because if we want to get our economy going, we've got to stop taxing it to a standstill. So I think you'll see a very strong [Budget-in-Reply] from Angus tonight, but I think the absolute centrepiece of everything he says will be speaking to Australians and saying, we hear you and we want to put you first.

ENDS