MPs tell Parliament: constituents dying waiting for home care
Politicians in the House of Representatives have shared stories of older constituents waiting so long to receive home care, they die before Government-funded support arrives.
Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Member for Ryan in western Brisbane, said in Parliament last week that the aged care reforms that came into effect on 1 November 2025 have made life harder for older people and their families.
“Many older people must pay more for the care they receive or simply make do with less care,” she said.
“With long delays for receiving funding, shamefully – tragically – people will die while they wait.”
She told the “truly heartbreaking” story of one woman.
“One constituent told me that her elderly father has recently suffered a stroke and has been classified as needing the highest level of Support at Home funding, level 8.
“However, under the new laws, he still has an eight- to nine-month wait for the funding to arrive. This constituent says, ‘There is a high likelihood my father will die before his funding comes through.’”
Another Queensland MP, the LNP’s Cameron Caldwell, from Fadden in the north Gold Coast region, shared the story of a women approved in July 2025 for a Level 4 Home Care Package, the highest level of home care support
“Yet, by January 2026, she still had not received the funding and, sadly, is now on end-of-life care,” Caldwell said.
The comments follow Independent MP Monique Ryan’s question to the Minister for Aged Care Sam Rae in the House of Representatives last month if the aged care reforms were ‘robo aged care’.
The Senate Inquiry into Aged Care Service Delivery last year heard almost 5,000 older Australians died in 2024-25 waiting for their correct level of Home Care Package.
Package demand exceeds supply
Both the Minister for Health and Ageing Mark Butler and Minister Rae continue to defend the Support at Home reforms. In an interview on ABC Melbourne Drive last week, Minister Rae said he had made changes to the queue rate for some priority categories to speed up the delivery of some Support at Home packages, however he did not say which Packages would be prioritised.
Urgent Packages are still only promised within one month – the same timeframe as ‘priority’ Packages under the former Home Care Packages program.
Minister Rae also said last week that staffing pressure are limiting home care providers’ ability to deliver care. “We’ve got such extraordinary demand within the system that it is putting providers under pressure,” he said.
Last year, facing pressure from crossbenchers, Rae and Butler were forced to reverse a freeze on 83,000 Home Care Packages when the rollout of the new Aged Care Act was postponed. They committed to releasing 20,000 Packages by 1 November, a further 20,000 by the end of 2025, and another 43,000 by mid-2026.
In February, Ageing Australia CEO Tom Symondson told The Weekly SOURCE that the 83,000 new packages being released in 2025-26 are “nowhere near enough”.
