Doorstop interview with Minister Rae, Canberra – 2 June 2026

JOURNALIST: Do you think that it's okay to have 100,000 people who have been assessed as needing a Home Care Package but still waiting to actually receive those services? 

SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: What the report's shown us is that wait times to receive services continue to drop across the board. And that's been the focus of our Government, making sure that the experience of older people who deserve to be getting fast care, good care, high quality care and dignified care, are getting that as soon as possible. And I'm pleased that this report shows the green shoots of that being delivered. 

JOURNALIST: I know it's dropping, but why is there that delay between people being assessed as needing help and then actually receiving that help? 

RAE: Well there are a range of reasons. We have a thing called the national priority system, so once people go through the assessment process they're put on the national priority system. And it's essentially so that we can designate the most appropriate care for the people who need it most and they are prioritised in accordance with their need for care, and then that care is allocated in due course. 

JOURNALIST: Are there staffing issues involved? 

RAE: There are very significant workforce challenges - as you put it, staffing issues - across the sector, whether it's in home care or residential care. We've got more people than ever before receiving care across our country. By the end of the next financial year, there'll be 420,000 people receiving in-home care under the Support at Home program. That will have nearly tripled since 2020. 

JOURNALIST: Is that a concern, just given how many people are going to be coming through the system, if it seems like we're already struggling to meet that demand? 

RAE: It's one of the big public policy challenges of our time - demand for aged care services in the context of an ageing population has never been greater. And rightly, we've also seen community expectations around the type of care that people want to receive change as well. We've got more people in residential aged care than ever. We've got more people receiving support at home than ever before. We've got more people receiving community care than ever before. We're going to have to keep investing in order to meet that demand. 

JOURNALIST: Now, if you were a bit cynical on some of these numbers - with the delays that we're seeing in people being assessed in the first place but then also the delay from the assessment to the care actually being delivered. If you were a bit more cynical, there's some people who say that is actually saving the Government money the longer these people wait. What do you say to that? 

RAE: Our focus is 100 per cent on getting the best quality care for older people as soon as possible. We've seen wait times come down very substantially around assessments. At the worst, under the Liberals, that blew out to 10 months. We've got that down now consistently under a month, the median wait time for assessments. And as I said, the report on the weekend showed not that all the work's done, but that we've got very significant improvements around wait times for the receiving of care. 

JOURNALIST: And then what about residential aged care? There's also delays in getting people, out of hospital and into those aged care beds. What's the hold up there? 

RAE: Well the issue of delayed discharge to which you refer has been a long-standing one. Hospitals have always had older people – older people do tend to get sick and require that type of acute care. However we wanted to make sure that people are always cared for in the best possible environment. 

So, we'll continue to work closely with the states. We, of course, struck a record $25 billion deal. The Prime Minister and Mark Butler struck that deal with the states last year and that included, through the negotiation, a $2 billion component that was ring-fenced to help with this delayed discharge issue. Now, the states did reject that and decided to take the cash, but nevertheless we'll continue to work. We've just announced an additional $3.7 billion of investment through this budget, a large component of which is designed to lift the supply of aged care across our country. 

JOURNALIST: And just lastly, there are some states that estimate around 15 per cent of their hospital beds are taken up by older people who should be in a residential aged care bed. Are you looking to improve those kinds of numbers? 

RAE: We want to make sure that people are getting the right kind of care when they need it. In some cases, older people are best cared for in hospital when they've got acute needs, and that's the right place for them to be. In other cases, they should be coming out of hospital and into another more appropriate care environment. We'll continue to work with the states and the territories to make sure that we get the best care, the right care for older people when they need it. 

JOURNALIST: Excellent. Thank you.