Pre-Budget Submission 2026-27: Ageing Australia's 11 demands

For the third successive year, the peak body for residential aged care operators wants the Australian Government to provide additional funding to support badly-needed investment in infrastructure.

“We recognise the current pressures on the federal budget. However, investing in the aged care sector now will help the community overall,” Ageing Australia states in its submission.

“Critically, it will reduce further costs to Australia’s national healthcare system which is struggling with a massive growth in demand from older people not properly catered for elsewhere. It will improve access to the right care and support, enhance quality of life of older people and their families and ultimately result in a better future for Australia.”

The peak body states, as The Weekly SOURCE has reported, the increased demand for aged care services is not being met by increased supply. StewartBrown maintains the aged sector is “not investable”.

To boost investment, Ageing Australia, like StewartBrown, wants an increase in the Accommodation Supplement to align funding with the actual costs to maintain, renew and build new aged care homes.

In addition, it seeks a price floor to the Maximum Permissible Interest Rate (MPIR) set at 8% to support sector investment and market stability, which it also stated in its 2024-25 submission.

Ageing Australia also states in its submission that it is seeking a review of the Australian National Aged Care Classification (ANACC) funding model to more accurately align care funding with actual provider costs for the annual period.

Further, the peak body wants the Government to bring in a low interest loan scheme to facilitate the development and renewal of residential aged care homes, and double the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program funding and extend eligibility to priority applications across all locations to support capital development.

Support at Home

Ageing Australia has also made a number of recommendations relating to the troubled Support at Home program.

• Implement price caps for Support at Home services no earlier than 1 January 2027;
• Increase the care management cap for Support at Home to 15% and review whether a further increase is necessary;
• Review funding for Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) services and align CHSP indexation rates with real cost growth and regional cost-of-living variations to ensure sustainability.

In 2023-24, Governments spent $36.4 billion on aged care services, with the largest proportion (59%) spent on residential care services.

The remaining funds were spent on home care and support services (32%), flexible care services (3.0%) and other aged care services, including workforce and service improvement, and assessment and information services (6.3%).