PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Returning to the Government's shift on Aged Care, I want to bring in the Minister for Aged Care, Sam Rae. Welcome.
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Thanks, PK. Great to be here.
KARVELAS: Okay. So, you said there was no technical reason why you couldn't have allowed these to be rolled out earlier. What changed today?
RAE: The conversation that’s been happening has been about bringing forward the Support at Home program. The Support at Home program is the new program of delivering in-home care. And it requires that legislative framework that comes into force from 1 November with the implementation of the new Aged Care Act.
But our focus has always been on making sure that we get as much care to as many people as possible, and we have always taken a principled approach to these reforms that that should be done on a bipartisan basis. So today, we’ve been able to reach bipartisan agreement which is bringing forward 20,000 of the 83,000 Support at Home packages. We’re bringing them back into the current Home Care Packages program so we can get those rolled out the door quickly. So, 20,000 of those will be under the Home Care Packages program and the first 20,000 of the Support at Home packages will then come in through November, December, and we’ll see the remaining 43,000 rolled out in the first six months of next year.
KARVELAS: Okay. So, were you in the meeting to negotiate the deal?
RAE: There’s have been a million meeting to negotiate this deal.
KARVELAS: The one, the key one where, you know, it was thrashed out, the deal with the Coalition?
RAE: I don’t think there’s been a key meeting. There’s been-
KARVELAS: Sussan Ley suggested you weren’t so that’s blatantly why I’m asking.
RAE: Our team has been working around the clock throughout, well, not just this week but many weeks, to get to this point and there’s a lot of conversations. I’ve had conversations with the Opposition. This is a huge one for older people.
KARVELAS: You haven’t directly answered my question. The deal was signed off. Yeah, we’ll do that. Yeah, we’ll give you the 20,000. Where you there?
RAE: I'm not sure what meeting you’re referring to there. There have been a lot of meetings. We’ve all been involved in many, many meetings. I'm really lucky, I get to work with Mark Butler who’s a really awesome person. He’s a fantastic Minister. He’s a great leader within our Government. And he has been a fantastic leader of these discussions and negotiations as the Senior Minister, and I've enjoyed working with him through this process.
KARVELAS: How many people are on the waitlist?
RAE: I said today in the Parliament - I don't know if you’ve noticed, I’ve taken a few questions in the Parliament...
KARVELAS: I have noticed. I’ve been watching you.
RAE: …this week, PK. I’ve had a bit of practice, which has been great. Because we’ve put the discussion around aged care issues at the front of the Parliaments agenda, which has been very rewarding.
KARVELAS: Well, the Opposition, the Greens and the Independents have put it on front of the agenda.
RAE: I’ve got to speak t every day on it and it’s been fantastic.
KARVELAS: Okay. But how many people are on the waitlist? Because you’ve given conflicting figures.
RAE: So, we’ve published waitlist. There’s a process for consolidating the figures for ensuring they’re correct. This is not a number that we want to throw around. We make really important, complex public policy decisions based on these numbers. And of course, the public have their understanding of where the public policy programs are up to based on these numbers. So, we don't just throw numbers around willy-nilly.
KARVELAS: So, what’s the number?
RAE: So, the last reported number at the end of quarter, it was the March quarter, March 31, and it was just under 88,000 people. Once it was a verified number - it was under 88,000 people.
KARVELAS: Okay. And the Opposition says they want to get the wait time to get the package under a month. Will you commit to doing that?
RAE: I will leave it to the Opposition to announce their-
KARVELAS: But in terms of the wait time?
RAE: …to announce their policies on this. We certainly want to get the wait times driven down, and this is why we’re introducing these additional 83,000 packages. We’ve got, as I said, at the last reported number about, you know, roughly similar, 88,000 people sitting on that waitlist. That will continue to grow. With our ageing population, we’re going to continue to see growth.
That’s why today is such an important day for older people. It’s such a big win. Because we now have a bipartisan pathway to deliver the aged care reforms.
KARVELAS: After the 83,000 packages are out, what happens then? Is it one in, one out? Are they exhausted?
RAE: Over the forward estimates in the years to come, there’s a growth component within the program as well. So, what we’re making sure is that we’re building an aged care system that reflects the big challenge that our community faces, and that’s an ageing population.
So, whether it be in the in-home care space to which this particular program pertains, the Support at Home program, or our residential aged care space, we’ve got a lot to work to do to make sure that we’ve got a system that’s built for the ageing population. So, we’ll continue to see growth.
KARVELAS: Okay. So, just to be clear, 83,000 but that's not a cap, it will grow for the other- because there’ll be more demand?
RAE: Inevitably. Demand will continue to grow. So, we’ve seen within the home Care Packages program - that’s the current program, the one that we acknowledge is not fit for purpose in terms of what the community expects, in terms of what older people in our community need – we’ve seen that grow from 155,000 people back in 2020, to over 300,000 people today. And I’ve said this a few times, we’ve had 800 per cent growth in the homecare costs that the Federal Governments invest over the last decade. So, growth in ageing population is an absolute given.
KARVELAS: So, it won't be one in, one out?
RAE: No, no. There will have to be ongoing growth in the program. The program is designed to better fit with an ageing population, so there will be ongoing growth.
KARVELAS: Okay. Do you accept, though, that while the argy-bargy’s been going on around this, there has been a lot of distress. People- I mean, you heard talkback, I know you came on with my colleague Raf Epstein and you took talkback, you heard the distress. But this is the delay - you say today we’ve announced this - but the delay has caused distress?
RAE: Well, with respect to Raf and other of your colleagues who do a fantastic job and have put this issue front and centre for which I have been appreciative. I spend a lot of time speaking to older people. It’s one of the great privileges of my job, is getting to spend time with older people. So, I have had very direct experiences and people have been really generous in sharing their distress at times, their frustration at working through this.
So, at a core of what we've been doing here, we’ve had the interest of older people. As I said, we had the principle of needing to keep this bipartisan, because that's what how we make sure it's real and it lasts; and the pragmatic approach to getting as much care to older people as we possibly can. And that's what we achieved.
KARVELAS: So, these 20,000, when do they start rolling out?
RAE: As soon as possible. So, my Department are already looking at- at the moment we roll out about 2,000 packages, over 2,000 packages a week – again, I’ve canvassed this once or twice in the Parliament this week. So, we already roll out about 2,000 packages a week, or over 2,000 packages a week. We always make sure that anyone who is assessed as high priority gets their package within a month. And now, we’ll quickly work out how we can get these additional packages into that component as a growth component.
KARVELAS: Okay. So, do you think this was the Parliament working well? The pressure on the Government led to this deal today?
RAE: I think there's a broader question to be asked here about how we achieve real and lasting reform in our body politic. And bipartisanship between the parties of government is really critically important to that. Other big reforms that we’ve seen - and I point at the NDIS and, obviously, we’ve been going through a process of reforming the NDIS since we came to Government – but the NDIS is broadly accepted as this fantastic scheme that affords dignity, a better quality of life to people living with disability. With the aged care reforms, we’ve always pursued bipartisanship because that is how we make sure this last and it's real, and that people feel it and it doesn't become an artefact of politics that gets kicked around.
KARVELAS: Okay. So, you feel like you’ve survived your baptism of fire this week?
RAE: Been an awesome week. I’ve had a lot of fun and I think we’ve got some great outcomes.