Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I think anyone would understand that you need time to recruit nurses into residential aged care. The costings we did for our election commitment also had the money flowing from 1 July 2023. If we moved it forward, I think there would be issues about implementation, for sure, but we haven't accounted for that in our figures that we presented to the election. The Prime Minister's repeatedly said that what we said we'd do in the election campaign is what we're going to do in government. That commitment was for registered nurses 24/7 in residential aged care from 1 July 2023. The budget will have that commitment contained in it. The legislation can pass here whenever the Senate is ready to deal with it post the committee inquiry. Providers will have enough time to recruit nurses into residential aged care, and the funding will flow from 1 July.