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Coalition, Greens and crossbench unite to force release of 20,000 home support packages after government delays rollout until November
An unprecedented political alliance spanning the Coalition, Greens and crossbench senators is pressuring the Albanese government to immediately release 20,000 home care packages for older Australians, setting up a potentially embarrassing Senate defeat this week.
The cross-party push comes after the government delayed the promised release of 83,000 aged care packages from July to November, leaving thousands of assessed seniors without support while they languish on waiting lists.
Independent Senator David Pocock has joined forces with Coalition and Greens senators to force a Senate vote as early as tomorrow that would compel the government to expedite package delivery. The motion is expected to pass, creating significant political pressure on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's administration.
"The government will have a choice after the Senate has spoken," Shadow Health and Aged Care Minister Anne Ruston said during an ABC Afternoon Briefing interview Tuesday. "They can either look older Australians in the face and say, despite the fact we can, and the sector has told us they can, the department has told us that they can, despite that, we're not going to accept the Senate's decision."
The political standoff centers on whether existing aged care infrastructure can accommodate additional packages while broader system reforms are implemented. Health Minister Mark Butler has defended the delay as necessary preparation time for providers adapting to the most significant aged care changes in a generation.
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"We compressed what should have been a decade's reform into three short years," Butler said. "I know that put a lot of pressure on aged care providers to do a lot of change very quickly. And we passed legislation before December that frankly is the biggest update and change to our aged care system in a generation."
However, Ruston disputes the government's rationale, arguing the delay conflates two separate issues: implementing new reform frameworks and releasing packages under the existing system that has operated for years.
"Home care packages have been released for many, many years, and the only thing standing in the way of the government releasing home care packages right now to older Australians who the government themselves have assessed as needing this care is the government's refusal to release them," Ruston said.
The Coalition senator revealed her office has been inundated with distressed families, including relatives of seniors assessed as needing immediate support but told to wait up to a year for packages.
"People who are ringing up and telling us that their loved one is 97 and they've been told they're going to wait for a year before they get access to a home care package," Ruston said. "I mean, somebody who's 97 doesn't have the luxury of time."
The political drama intensified when new Aged Care Minister Sam Ray quoted Ruston's own media release supporting the reform delay during parliamentary question time Tuesday. The statement said the delay was "the right decision for older Australians, aged care providers and home care operators."
Ruston dismissed Ray's response as "disingenuous," maintaining her support for delaying complex system reforms while arguing this should not prevent releasing packages under current arrangements.
"There are two completely separate issues and the Minister is quite purposely conflating the two," she said. "We've actually been saying that the government needed to make sure it had a proper transition plan for the new reform framework for aged care going forward. This has got nothing to do with older Australians getting the home care packages that they need."
The Coalition has proposed a staged release schedule through amendments that would deliver 20,000 packages immediately, another 20,000 after November 1, and the remaining 43,000 by June 30, 2025.
If the Senate motion passes, the government faces a difficult choice in the House of Representatives between accepting the directive or rejecting bipartisan pressure to assist waiting seniors. The funding has already been allocated, according to Ruston.
"The money is there," she said. "So the government's got some pretty big explaining to do why it's stopping older Australians getting the care that would be available to them if they just released these packages."
The controversy has been building since departmental revelations during a recent inquiry that officials knew since January that July reforms were unachievable, yet legislation was not introduced until after the federal election.
Ruston also criticized the government's transparency, noting her office has received no updated data on waiting lists since March 31, breaking a pattern of monthly reporting that had continued for years.
"Up until now, the government's always given me rolling data within the following month of the end of the previous month," she said. "And then for some inexplicable reason, I have had no data for five months and we know the government hasn't released any new packages for much of that time."
The aged care sector remains divided on implementation timing. While some providers initially supported the delay to prepare for new systems, others have since indicated readiness to proceed with additional packages under existing frameworks.
Butler acknowledged the challenge facing any government managing increased aged care demand but emphasized his administration's commitment to the sector.
"Look, this is going to be hard. I'm not going to pretend to listeners or viewers that dealing with the increase in demand we're seeing right now for aged care is going to be easy for any government," he said. "But we have focused more energy and resources on aged care, I think, than any other single area of policy in the three and a bit years since we've been in government."
The Senate showdown represents a rare moment of cross-party unity on aged care policy, typically a contentious political battleground. The Greens' support for the Coalition motion underscores growing parliamentary frustration with the government's handling of the issue.
If successful, the vote would mark a significant political embarrassment for the Albanese government, which campaigned on improving aged care following criticism of the previous Coalition administration's handling of the sector.
The outcome could influence broader aged care policy debates as Australia grapples with an aging population requiring increased home support services to remain in their communities rather than entering residential facilities.
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