Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bernardi, for the opportunity to share with colleagues more good news from the second Hockey-Cormann budget. I think all colleagues in this place know that often when it comes to social services and funding arrangements for social services the individuals that social services are intended to support are often invisible in those funding arrangement. That is certainly the case with home care in aged care. The current arrangements are not necessarily great from the perspective of the provider or the consumer. Providers have to apply for packages through the annual ACAR round. Consumers, after they are assessed by ACAT as being eligible, firstly need to endeavour to find a provider who has a package and, secondly, need to seek to find a provider who has a package at the level to which they are entitled, be it level 1, 2, 3 or 4.

I am very pleased to be able to advise colleagues that the budget provides that from February 2017 the money will no longer attach to providers. Instead, it will attach to individuals. So when an individual is assessed as being eligible and they are given a package they will then be able to take their package to the service provider of their choice, much like the NDIS, putting the individual at the centre and in charge. For the modest investment of $74 million, we will be able to change the system and the process so that $7.5 billion worth of home-care packages over four years can go through the individual.

But it is also good news from the perspective of providers that there will be a $3.2 million a year saving for providers, because they will no longer have to go through the ACAR process. So, after February next year there will no longer be— (Time expired)