Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As you know, the member for Blair is a wonderful Queenslander and a terrific local member, and I'm grateful to him for the question. To keep the Queensland theme going, I want to pay tribute to the aged care minister for the absolute mountain of work she has done to get the point we have got to today, with the help of the health minister, the Prime Minister, the finance minister and everyone on this side of House and indeed across the parliament. It's a very good thing that Australians are living longer and healthier lives, and this is how we fund the care that Australians need and deserve as they age. It's about better care for more people in a more sustainable way.

We are very conscious here of our intergenerational responsibilities. If you look at the intergenerational report, it tells us that, over the next 40 years, the number of people over 65 will double and the number of people over 85 will triple. Any serious government needs to take this challenge and this opportunity very seriously. Government spending in aged care over that period is expected to double as a share of the economy, and that makes it one of the fastest growing areas of government spending in the budget.

There are five big areas of government spending: aged care, health care, NDIS, defence and interest costs. What this government has shown is a real willingness and a real ability to deal with some of those structural challenges in the budget—the NDIS, defence, interest costs and, today, aged care as well. We're turning those big Liberal deficits in the near term into Labor surpluses, at the same time as we deal with some of the big structural pressures in the budget as well. The announcement today, made by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Aged Care is all about improving aged care and strengthening the budget at the same time. It is a step change in care, and it is a structural reform to the budget at the same time as well.

The net impact of the changes that the minister has announced today is a $930 million spend over four years and a $12.6 billion save over the course of the next 10 years. Aged-care spending will continue to grow but at an average of 5.2 per cent, not 5.7 per cent, over the decade, and it will moderate as a share of the economy as well. This is all about making sure that we can provide much better care to many more Australians as they age and live longer and healthier lives and making sure that we do that in the most responsible and sustainable way that we can. This is a very important economic reform that has been announced today. It will make the budget more sustainable, but, much more important than that, it will mean that we can afford to provide the care that older Australians need and deserve as they age, and I pay tribute to the minister, the government and indeed the parliament for agreeing to this important progress. (Time expired)

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