PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Let’s bring in the Aged Care Minister, Sam Rae, live now. Sam, thanks for your time this morning. Is it that kind of story that forced or humbled you into this backflip?
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Good morning, Pete. Thanks for having me this morning. We've always said throughout this generational reform process that we'll listen to older people and we'll respond to their experiences. This system's been in place since November and I've had very clear feedback from older people and from their carers and their families, and that's why we've made this decision we're announcing today.
HOST: But why were people even in the first place, you know, forced to go without showers or pay hundreds of dollars for them? I mean, that's insane.
RAE: Pete, we've got a $40 billion aged care system and that system has to be sustainable for Australian taxpayers and so there are always difficult trade-off decisions to be made. Now, in terms of the classing of care, we took the advice of experts and decided what was clinical care versus not clinical care. Importantly, older people have told us that they need showering, dressing and this continence care considered as clinical care. And so from October, that's what we'll be doing.
HOST: So what do patients do until then?
RAE: Well, of course if we can implement this sooner we will, but we need to make careful considered decisions that are in the interests of older people and that includes the implementation process. We've gone through a careful policy design process here and we'll go through the implementation in the same manner.
HOST: So that means, I mean, potentially, if the changes aren't in place before then, that people could go without showers potentially for months or pay hundreds of dollars for them. Is that the case?
RAE: Well, again, this is about the co-contribution arrangements. So there are still services being provided and we haven't seen any interruption to services. This is about making sure that in the balance, the overall balance of the system, we get it right in the interests of older people. That's what this decision is about. We've listened to older people and we're making the changes that they've asked for.
HOST: Are any more changes expected?
RAE: Well, I'm not going to pre-empt Minister Butler's contribution at the National Press Club today. He'll be speaking today and then we'll have more to say about aged care ahead of the budget. But there's extensive work going on in this space to make sure that we get the very best outcomes for older people.
HOST: There have been a number of concerns and complaints about the new aged care system and presuming you would express full confidence in it, why are folks still so alarmed by it?
RAE: As I said, again, this is a generational reform, Pete. And of course, some parts of it will need to be adapted over time in order to meet the evolving expectations of the community. I focus on listening to older people and to carers, as older people's families and so wherever I see opportunities for improvement we'll seek to implement those.
HOST: Let's move to the NDIS. No doubt there will be some concern from worthy participants of the program today. Which parts of it are your Government looking to wind back?
RAE: Minister Butler is going to stand up at the National Press Club today, Pete, and he's going to outline the changes in the NDIS but we need to be really clear about this. The NDIS was created by Labor. It will always be protected by Labor. But we saw the stewardship of the NDIS under the former Liberal government be very, very poor. And at one point, growth in the NDIS got out to 22 per cent. That has been brought back now by our government to 10 per cent. And discussions with the states and the territories have confirmed that growth needs to come down to that 5 or 6 per cent margin.
HOST: But you've still got runaway costs that have ballooned under your stewardship, though. You've had four years under this now.
RAE: We've brought costs down from 22 per cent in terms of the cost growth of the scheme back down to 10 per cent. There's definitely more work to do here and Minister Butler will outline our program of reform moving forward today at the National Press Club.
HOST: Okay. Can you get the states on board though?
RAE: Those discussions are ongoing, and of course they've been very constructive up to this point. As I said, Minister Butler's going to stand up today at the National Press Club, he’s going to outline what we're doing in the NDIS. The NDIS is a critical system designed to support people who are living with profound disabilities, and that system needs to be sustainable so that those people have the supports that they need ongoing.
HOST: How are you going with that earpiece?
RAE: Yeah, it keeps falling out. I'm doing my best, mate.
HOST: Sam Rae. Thanks for coming on this morning. We'll chat to you again soon.
RAE: Thanks for having me.