Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The Rudd government is providing more funding for more services for older Australians than ever before. In fact, more than 6,300 residential places and 2,800 community care places have been delivered by this government since we were elected and many more are on the way. Over the next four years the government will provide record funding of $44 billion for aged-care services. In fact, under the Rudd government funding for aged-care services has increased by an average of 9.1 per cent a year. This includes delivering an additional $728 million for aged-care homes in the last budget. This government has substantially increased accommodation payments. In March 2008 we introduced changes that provided additional funding of more than $300 million a year when fully implemented, and that is primarily for high care. We have also made $150 million of zero real interest loans available with $150 million more to come.

The government recognises that there are many pressures within our system. These are pressures that have been able to build up for many years. Greg Mundy, CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia, has said:

Aged care has limped along on a series of short term expedient patch-up solutions for most of the past decade.

That was said by Greg Mundy on 11 March 2008. As we have said, there are pressures in the system. The Prime Minister spoke earlier about our national health and hospital reform—

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