CLINT STANAWAY, HOST: Well, for too long now, we've been reporting on the dire state of Australia's crumbling aged care system, calling for major overhaul and change, how we care for our elderly citizens.
ALISON PIOTROWSKI, HOST: As of today, the federal Government will deliver the largest reforms to the industry in a generation. Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Sam Rae, joins us now with more. Minister, thanks for your time this morning. Can you walk us through what these key changes are that you're announcing today?
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: We're not just announcing them today. This is a really important day. We have been embarking on a once-in-a-generation reform process of Australia's aged care system, but today is the big next step. It's not the beginning and it's not the end of reform, but today the new Aged Care Act comes into effect. For the first time, older people across Australia will be governed by a Statement of Rights that underpins all of their rights within the care system, and of course we'll begin our new Support at Home program to help older people stay in their homes close to family, close to community for as long as possible.
STANAWAY: How concerned are you about the state of the sector right now? I mean, is it broken? Is that too dramatic to say? And is this going to help?
RAE: I think that might be a little dramatic. What we can say about the sector is that demand is growing very rapidly. We have an ageing population, and rightly our community has evolving expectations in terms of what aged care looks like.
Now if we go back a few years under the Morrison Liberal government, we had a Royal Commission which uncovered very distressing examples of older people being neglected in care. And so when we were elected in 2022, we made very clear that we would have a very ambitious program for reform in this space. We want every older person in Australia to be able to access safe, dignified and high-quality aged care. Today is the next step in that ambition.
PIOTROWSKI: Yeah, the dignity part is the important part in all of this. And, Sam, the changes mean people will have better access to find a place that suits their needs in a location of their choice, but that all depends on vacancies, doesn't it?
RAE: Well, with a growing ageing population, we do need to make sure that supply of residential care is meeting that need, and you're quite right to point out that over the last number of years, that that hasn't been the case. So part of this reform process is to stimulate new investment in the residential aged care space on top of that support we're providing for people to stay in their homes for as long as they want to and as long as it's appropriate to their care needs.
STANAWAY: Okay Minister, we've been hearing a lot and reading about this Statement of Rights for older people who are receiving publicly funded care. I mean, how does that work? How important is it?
RAE: It's critically important. And older people have waited so long for this. There has been tremendous work from older people, their families and advocates. And I pay my strongest respects to the sector as well, the aged care sector, who have responded since the Royal Commission in extraordinary fashion to make sure that the quality of care that’s being provided has been substantially lifted. As I said, this isn’t the beginning of the reform, it's definitely not the end, but this is a massive step forward. One of the things that the Statement of Rights affords people as of today is when a place is allocated within the residential aged care system, it used to go to the provider or to the facility. That will now be allocated to the person directly so they'll have greater control, they'll have greater choice around where they want to spend that part of their life.
PIOTROWSKI: Well, these changes couldn't come soon enough. Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Minister Sam Rae, thank you for joining us this morning on Today.
STANAWAY: Thanks, Minister.