Press conference with Minister Butler and Minister Rae, Canberra – 3 September 2025

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: I’m delighted to be with the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, to provide a bit of an update about our approach to building a new aged care system. I'm so proud of the work that we did as a government in the first term to really start responding to recommendations of the royal commission, but also the broader challenge to build an aged care system that was fit for purpose and particularly ready to start dealing with the very big increase in demand for aged care services that we are already seeing with the ageing of the baby boomer generation.
 
I’m not sure there was any single area of policy where we invested more money in our first term of government than the deliberate decisions we took in relation to aged care. Making sure there was a registered nurse in place 24/7 in aged care facilities, increasing the number of staffing care minutes, but finally increasing the wages of aged care workers, which every aged care provider will tell you, has just changed their ability to recruit and retain quality aged care staff.
 
The passage of the Aged Care Act just before Christmas reflected a very serious, constructive negotiation between the government and the opposition at the time, and I think that reflects across the aisle an understanding by both parties of government, the Coalition and the Labor Party, that ensuring aged care reform needs to be done on a bipartisan basis. Particularly, I want to thank Senator Ruston for her work in those negotiations. They were long, they were hard fought at times, but they ended up with a package that reflects very well on the parliament and will serve older Australians in the future very well. We took a decision to defer the introduction of that new system from the 1st of July to the 1st of November, and that reflected a very clear point of view put by the sector, but particularly with, frankly, the election taking place in the middle of that short runway – between the passage of the legislation and the initial operative date of the 1st of July. There needed to be a short delay and Minister Rae and I announced that some months ago.
 
There has, over the course of the last little while, been a debate about the timing of the very significant number of additional Home Care Packages, or what would be called Support at Home packages that we funded through the budgetary decisions that surrounded the passage of that legislation. That's been a good debate over the last several days. I've said a couple of times now that, of course, there have been constructive discussions between the government and the opposition. Again, we have to get this legislation through the parliament this week. If we don't, there is simply no way we can introduce the new aged care system on the 1st of November. And again, there have been good, constructive discussions with Senator Ruston about finding a way forward to ensure we configure those 83,000 packages that we funded for the first 12 months of the new aged care system in a way that meets the needs and the views of particularly, the two major parties. Obviously, also advocacy groups who have been talking to both of us.
 
I'm pleased to announce we've reached a position where we can support the position of Senator Ruston in the Senate when it comes to a vote over the course of today. I don't really speak Senate, but I think the vote will be over the course of today. We will be supporting the position that Senator Ruston has outlined. That's something we think is very consistent with the approach we've taken to build a new aged care system. That will mean there will be 20,000 additional Home Care Packages released between now and the end of October, which is the last time, the last date before the new aged care system comes into effect.
 
From the 1st of November, the start date of the new aged care system, until the 31st of December, there will be an additional 20,000 Support at Home packages put into the system. And in the first 6 months of next year, the remaining 43,000 of Labor's Support at Home packages will be put into the market. That reflects an agreed position between the 2 major parties, the 2 parties of government. I hope now that means we can get this legislation through the Senate. And the Minister Rae, and providers across the sector, and advocacy organisation representing older Australians can then get on with the job of introducing a new aged care system for Australia. I’ll hand over to Minister Rae to say a few words, and then we have to take questions.
 
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Thank you, Mark. I am very happy that we now have a bipartisan pathway to passing these bills. Bills, as Mr Butler has outlined, that are critical for the commencement of the new Aged Care Act and the accompanying support at home program. Throughout this reform process, we've taken a principled approach, a commitment to the bipartisan nature of these reforms, it's how we ensure that they are enduring and meaningful, and we've taken a pragmatic approach to always making sure that our focus remains on getting as much care for as many older people as possible.
 
With this bipartisan agreement, we get passage of the bills, we get implementation on the 1st of November, we bring forward from the 83,000 Support at Home packages that we previously funded, 20,000 that will be delivered ahead of 1st November, an additional 20,000 that get delivered across November–December, and then the balance of our Support at Home packages, the 43,000 delivered in the first half of next year.
 
This is an excellent outcome for older people in Australia, for their families, for providers, people that work across the sector, the workers that look after the people that we love.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, what do you say to those people waiting for those Home Care Packages who now see that it appears to avoid an embarrassing vote in the Senate, you put forward the packages that they're being desperately waiting for?
 
BUTLER: What I say, and Minister Rae has said this really articulately through the parliament this week, every older Australian who's waiting for a package is another signal that we need to build a better aged care system. We delivered additional packages in the 23 Budget, the 24 Budget, in MYEFO last year, we've got 83,000 additional packages to roll out. Now, we've just talked about the configuration that we propose to do that. We know it's tough to get enough packages into a system that is experiencing the level of increase in demand that aged care is dealing with. Now, it is going to be tough to get those packages out into the system now and ensure that they're all staffed. I know aged care well. I've worked with it for decades. It's all well and good to put packages into the markets, it’s another thing to ensure that every hour of that entitlement that an older Australian has is filled by a qualified aged care worker.
 
I know making sure that people get the aged care support that they need, or the hospital support that they need, is a daily pressure on our health and aged care systems, and that is why we work so hard to deliver a quality aged care system for the future.
 
JOURNALIST: How long will it take you or the government to get on top of this waiting list? It's gone out above 200,000 now. This is a good start, but there's still 120,000 and there'll be more that will be without packages. How long will it take for you to go on top of that waiting list?
 
BUTLER: I've said a number of times, we just have to be honest with Australia that the level of demand that is hitting the system is substantial. It's why I've said, frankly, we wasted a decade as a country. We built a system in 2012 that was supposed to be the subject of ongoing reform to ensure that the system was ready to deal with the age of the baby boomers. When David Tune did his first 5-yearly statutory review, which I had put in place in 2012, it was essentially shelved by the former government, and instead, money was taken out of the aged care system.
 
I talked yesterday about the fact that the then health minister, now the Leader of the Opposition, with responsibility for aged care, did not deliver a single additional package. That's why the sector was in such deep crisis, as we led into the COVID pandemic. We've had to compress what should have been a decade's reform into 3 very short years. There's enormous pressure out in the system, enormous pressure on providers to find the staff that they're going to need to deliver the packages they have, let alone the packages we're putting into the market. But we're just determined to work day after day to make sure we get as much quality aged care under the system as we humanly can.
 
JOURNALIST: Just picking up on what you said there. There are examples where people aren't able to get their full benefit of what their package says they are able to because of staffing gaps and other resourcing issues. So what's your message to providers around your expectation on now delivering those services? And given at the start of this week, the government was essentially arguing there wasn't preparedness and readiness in the system, has anything to your mind changed?
 
BUTLER: I'll ask Minister Rae to add to my comments, but I still hear of packages that have been allocated and provided to older Australians where it's hard to get the hours actually worked. I think we all understand we're in a tight labour market, and it is hard to get all of our health from aged care and disability services fully staffed. I've talked pretty openly about that. It's also why it was so important we lift aged care wages, because it's frankly, much easier now than it was 3 years ago, given that people could earn much more money in retail and hospitality than they could delivering aged care services.
 
But I don't pretend it's easy. Providers have said over the last little while, including in the Senate inquiry, very recently, that they are able to provide these packages if we put them into the market now, I guess now that they've got that opportunity, they need to demonstrate that. But look, providers know, the government knows that it is hard to staff all of these services. We're doing everything we can to support providers in doing this, but that pressure will still be there.
 
RAE: The workforce challenges are very real here. There's no doubt about it. That's why we've invested so comprehensively, including the $17.7 billion investment across the aged care sector to lift wages for aged care workers. The sector, as of last Friday, particularly in the Senate committee, made very clear that their evolved view is that they can meet this additional demand, and we've taken that on board.
 
In terms of the question of broader preparedness, when I became the minister a few months ago, I spent a lot of time speaking to older people and their families. I spent a lot of time talking to the sector. There are also a range of public commentaries made, which are on the record from various providers across the sector, indicating that they were not yet ready for the full implementation of the new Aged Care Act and Support at Home arrangements. We've taken on board that evolving view, and we've made the decision that we've made, and we'll be working very closely with the sector to make sure we get the best possible care for every older person across Australia.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, you talk about pragmatism and bipartisanship, but the Senate dragged you to this point. The Greens and the crossbench have been pushing for this for ages. David Pocock had an amendment for 20,000 in the upper house this morning. Wouldn't it have been better to do this sooner rather than resist all week in the face of warnings from the sector?
 
BUTLER: Going back to my time as Aged Care Minister, more than a decade ago, my approach in relation to aged care policy has always been to seek bipartisan support between the major parties. I just think that is the best way forward for enduring aged care reform that has the understanding from the sector and from older Australians themselves that it will endure. It won't be shifted by changes of government. It's been my approach now for as long as I've been working in the sector, which is a long time. We've had those discussions with Senator Ruston. They've served the parliament, and most importantly, they served the country well when we did that last year. And I think it's come to a good position again.
 
JOURNALIST: I know you were saying, obviously the Senate is mysterious, but Labor voted against the release of 20,000 Home Care Packages. That was an amendment put up by Pocock with The Greens and the Coalition voting for it. Why are you voting against it in the Senate and announcing this now?
 
BUTLER: This has been a moveable feast. What we're doing is supporting Senator Ruston’s amendment. As it happens, the way in which we're going to configure the packages also reflects Senator Pocock’s position. But frankly, Senator Ruston’s position was a more comprehensive outline of how the 83,000 would be configured. They're not contradictory those 2 things. But as I've said, my focus at a time when a whole lot of different positions in the political marketplace, my focus has always been to negotiate with the Coalition on aged care reform. So yes, the Pocock amendment actually does reflect the position that we'll be putting into the market, which is 20,000 Home Care Packages, but the position we've articulated and negotiated with Senator Ruston is more comprehensive than that.
 
JOURNALIST: Can you explain to older people, then what has changed in days and weeks recently, other than facing your first Senate loss in this new parliament?
 
BUTLER: A number of you can go with that political commentary, but our approach has been to get this bill through.
 
JOURNALIST: Labor was filibustering this morning though to delay?
 
BUTLER: We've been negotiating with the Coalition, we've been considering our position. At the end of the day, we have said the bill needs to pass before the end of this week. The bill did not need to pass yesterday. The bill needs to pass before the end of this week. We have been taking a sensible, measured approach to this, negotiating with the Coalition, seeing whether we can come to an agreed position that serves the interests of older Australians and gets the bill through the power and that's where we've got to today.
 
JOURNALIST: The sector has now had to deal with a number of changing policy decisions. Can you reassure aged care and home care providers now that this is it, it's done. There aren't going to be any other twists and turns in this attempt to reform the sector?
 
BUTLER: What we now have is a very stable position going forward for the introduction of the new aged care system. There's been a lot of talk about the number of packages, and obviously that is a really important element of it. But the system being introduced on the 1st of November is the biggest reform to aged care in a generation. It is a very substantial package of reforms. Not only to the number of packages, but the type of packages, the way in which they are configured. Instead of there being four levels, there are eight levels of package. People will be able to access assistive technology at home, for the first time, they will be able to receive palliative care packages at home, which is a really significant reform as well. The residential care sector is significantly reformed. This is going to be a very big series of changes for aged care providers to get their heads around and to introduce on the 1st of November. The number of packages and when they're delivered is obviously a critically important feature, but it is just one feature of a very complex series of Reforms.
 
JOURNALIST: Minister, just on a separate topic, has Dan Andrews become a pawn for the Chinese Communist Party propaganda for being photographed alongside Kim Jong Un and Putin. They're extraordinary images.
 
BUTLER: I think the Prime Minister's dealt with that.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on the Home Care Packages, how much are you expecting those additional ones to cost the government?
 
BUTLER: We'll outline those costs in the usual way. We'll have to reconcile those costs in the mid-year Budget review. There is a cost to putting Home Care Packages into the system, compared to Support at Home, because of grandfathering arrangements. There was a substantial cost to government in the 4-month delay to the tune of around $900 million. At the end of the day there are costs to introducing a high-quality aged care system for the future and getting this configuration of the 83,000 packages we're putting into the system, right. And the precise details of that will be reported in the usual way in MYEFO.
 
JOURNALIST: Did the government underestimate demand for aged care services in your last Budget?
 
BUTLER: In the last budget we put 83,000 in MYEFO and then confirmed in the 2025 Budget, these additional home packages. We've been very clear, as we've walked through the long process of finally getting an agreement around aged care reform, responding to the royal commission recommendations, most of which have not been the subject of a response by the former government, that we are about to hit a period of very significant demand. The oldest baby boomers were born about 79 years ago, which is about the average age of entry to a home care package. The average age of entry to residential care is about 83 at the moment. In 3 or 4 or 5 years, that very big step up in demand is going to hit the residential care sector as well. It is why we have worked so hard to compress a very long, complex period of reform into just three years. Providers have felt under pressure, as we've expected a lot of them and advocacy groups to make a lot of change very quickly. Even though we always knew the baby boomer generation was ageing, there was nothing done for a decade except money taken out of the Budget in 2015–2016, which is why you saw the sector fall under the crisis. That was reflected by the royal commission's report title of 'neglect'.
 
JOURNALIST: Has the waitlist then blown out more than you thought it would at this point? Did you underestimate that number? And if so, does that mean you won't be able to reach your target of getting that wait list down to three months by mid-2027?
 
BUTLER: I'll ask Minister Rae to add to this, but the whole system is predicated around making sure there is a reasonable wait time for older Australians. We can never be absolutely precise in determining how individual older Australians fare in their in their health, but we have been modelling what we think the demand will be, both from the home care system, but also the residential care system. And our budgets have been built around that.
 
RAE: I've discussed this many times at the parliament this week, I've been given plenty of opportunities. The reality is that growth and demand for aged care services is growing extraordinarily fast. In the home care space we've gone from about 155,000 people accessing home care services through the home care packages program in 2020 to well over 300,000 people. Now we're just announcing the profile by which we'll introduce an additional 83,000 packages, a growth component to that just over the next 12 months or so. The growth here is very substantial. In terms of government expenditure, we're talking about an 800 per cent growth in government expenditure in the home care space over the last decade. This area is growing very fast. Rightly, the community has evolved expectations about the quality of care that will be delivered. We saw a whole range of recommendations come out of the royal commission, and we're determined to make sure that older Australians receive the very best care and care that they deserve. Every decision that we make is in line with that.
 
JOURNALIST: So will it take more money, though, than what was assumed in the latest Budget? You know is the government reviewing what you set aside for aged care?
 
RAE: As Minister Butler said, the announcement that we're making today about the profiling of the 83,000 that we have already committed to, your financial implications of that group will be made clear in the MYEFO process.
 
JOURNALIST: Will it cost more money than you originally thought, to bring these extra 20,000 packages forward. Will that cost more? Understand, you don't want to figure on it. But can you say whether there will be an additional cost to that?
 
BUTLER: There will be an additional cost to that. And that will be reported in the usual way, in MYEFO. To Greg's point, we're dealing with the next 9 months. I'm trying to be as honest as I can be with people that this demand trajectory is steep, and governments for years, not the next few years, but for many years ahead, are going to have to manage what is going to be for some time a big increase in demand. You see that through the intergenerational report, you see that in our response to development of the new Age Care Act, and this is going to be a constant challenge for governments. It reflects a great thing that we are no longer dying at the age of 55 which we did 120 years ago. One of humanity's great triumphs is adding 2 or 3 decades to average life expectancy, and what that means now is we've got an obligation to provide older Australians with good care with dignity in their later years, and that's what both of us are determined to do. Thanks very much.