Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government securing a better future for older Australians?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question and for her passionate advocacy for people in aged care and in other social services, prior to her entry into the parliament as the member for Boothby.

Today we are putting the care back into aged care. We are announcing the greatest improvement to aged care in 30 years. At the heart of our government's aged-care reforms are a simple set of principles providing dignity, choice, respect and quality of care to older Australians. More Australians are living longer, and that is a good thing, but I know that older Australians also worry about going into aged care, and I know that their kids and grandkids do too. This is about caring for the generation that cared for us. Older Australians built this country, and they deserve to have dignity and respect in retirement. That's why, in previous aged-care legislation, we have ensured that now nurses are back into nursing homes 99 per cent of the time. There are some 3.9 million minutes of additional care for residents every single day as a result of the reforms that we have put in place.

As a result of the reforms that we've announced today, with bipartisan support—and I thank the opposition for their construction engagement on these issues—there are around 1.4 million Australians who will benefit from a new Support at Home program by 2035, helping them remain independent in their homes and their communities for longer. The feedback that all of us have had from family, from neighbours and from the communities we represent is that is overwhelmingly what older Australians want—to retain that connection with their home. These changes will result in some $5.6 billion being invested in a reform package that includes extra money for the Support at Home package. It comes into effect on 1 July next year. There are changes to improve the funding, viability and quality of residential aged care, including support for regional aged-care facilities. There are new laws to protect older Australians in aged care.

Reforms like this don't happen every day. We know that we have an ageing population—the IGR report indicates exactly why this is a big challenge. Previous governments haven't been able to get this done; we are getting this done, and it is in the interests of older Australians and those of us who one day—every Australian, we hope—become older Australians. We all have an interest in getting this right, and that's why this is such critical legislation. (Time expired)