Inspector-General of Aged Care speech a “surprise” to Federal Minister
- Surprise: Butler says parts of speech were new
- Response: Office says ministers were informed
- Modelling: Prevention could save $2 billion
- Data: 200,000 figure came from Department reports
The Inspector-General of Aged Care’s National Press Club address reinforced messages the sector had heard before – but not, it seems, the Federal Government.
In an interview on ABC Radio National Breakfast last Friday (17 July), Federal Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing Mark Butler conceded he didn’t watch the whole speech but said reports were “surprising”.
“She talked about things that we learned about in Government for the first time,” he said.
“She hasn’t been reporting some of the issues that got a lot of attention in the media before to us.
“She talked about economic modelling that she’s not provided to us,” Minister Butler added.
The modelling at issue
In her address at the National Press Club last Wednesday (15 July), Inspector-General Natalie Siegel-Brown said “early modelling” showed expanding the veterans’ aged care model to all home care recipients would reduce spending on residential aged care by almost $2 billion annually.
However, in a statement provided to The Weekly SOURCE after the interview, the Office of the Inspector-General said Ministers had been informed about the prevention project months before the speech.
The Office said it commissioned the economic modelling in early 2026 as part of a project examining how Australia’s $40 billion aged care budget could service more people, more quickly through a greater focus on prevention. The project is listed in both the Office’s 2025-26 and 2026-27 Annual Work Plans.
According to the statement, the Inspector-General wrote to the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors in March outlining the project and the issues that gave rise to it. She also met with Minister for Aged Care and Seniors Sam Rae in June, when the project was discussed.
The Office said the modelling has not yet been completed or published, but confirmed early findings helped inform the National Press Club address.
A familiar message
Siegel-Brown first mentioned modelling on better allocation of the Government’s $40 billion aged care budget, with a focus on prevention, at the DCM Group’s LEADERS SUMMIT 2026 in March.
A couple of months later, in a speech at the Positive Ageing Summit, she said her office was doing “economic research” to demonstrate how the Government “could make the very large amount of $40 billion go further.”
An update on the modelling was hardly surprising.
The 200,000 figure
The other “surprise” to the Federal Minister was Siegel-Brown’s quoted number of those waiting for aged care.
The figure she quoted was 200,000 – a number often reported in the media, including by The Weekly SOURCE.
Again, the Office of the Inspector-General said the figure was drawn directly from Department of Health, Disability and Ageing data.
It combines the 98,606 people waiting for an aged care assessment with the 100,191 people who have been assessed as eligible for Support at Home but are waiting for an ongoing package at the level they have been approved to receive. Both figures are current as at 31 March 2026.
In her speech, Siegel-Brown described those people as being “effectively stuck at the front door of the system.”
The Office said the figures were sourced from the Department’s publicly available Single Assessment System: Quarterly Needs Assessment Data Report and Support at Home Program: Ongoing Services Data Report.
So, the figure was no surprise to the sector.
A growing disconnect?
Minister Butler’s “surprise” is not the first time the Government has seemed out of step with issues already familiar to the sector since the new Aged Care Act took effect.
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has been called out for not adequately addressing concerns about the absence of human oversight of the Integrated Assessment Tool. The Aged Care Minister Sam Rae has also criticised operators grappling with the introduction of Higher Everyday Living Fees (HELF).
The Government has also been forced to backtrack on significant policy decisions, including withholding the release of 20,000 Home Care Packages and introducing consumer co-contributions for essential personal care.
Is it disconnect – or could it be political convenience?
