Laurie Sucic does not mince words.

“I hate begging,” she says, sitting in the neat living room of the unit she shares with her husband, Nandi, in a Sydney retirement village. “You work all your life, and then you have to beg.” At age 91, her Home Care Package application has been marked ‘not urgent’. “I don’t like that.”

It is urgent. Laurie and Nandi – aged 92 – have been assessed as needing Level 3 and Level 4 Home Care Packages. But like tens of thousands of older Australians, they are on the waitlist. They’ve been told it could be 17 months before the services they need become available.

“17 months?” Laurie says. “It’s a huge time when you’re