The Australian Government’s plan to abolish the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) and fold its 835,000 recipients into the Support at Home program is proceeding in a fog of secrecy, evidential vacuum and mounting sector alarm.
Evidence given to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee on 6 February 2026 laid bare a reform process that appears driven more by administrative tidiness than by proven benefits for older Australians or fiscal responsibility.
Chaired by Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne, the hearing heard from Meals on Wheels representatives, peak bodies, large providers, the Inspector-General of Aged Care Natalie Siegel-Brown, and Department of Health, Disability and Ageing officials.
Across more than three hours of testimony, a consistent picture emerged: profound uncertainty is already destabilising a low cost, preventative, community embedded program that supports more than half of all older Australians receiving aged care services.
Secrecy and the refusal to provide modelling or timelines
Eighteen months from the government’s stated “no sooner than 1 July 2027” transition date, neither the department nor the Inspector-General could point to publicly available modelling, cost benefit analysis or firm timelines.
When Senator Allman-Payne asked departmental witnesses whether modelling had been done on transitioning CHSP into Support at Home, First Assistant Secretary Greg Pugh replied: “We model multiple options relating to multiple policy and program decisions and we provide that to government as a routine course of advice.”
Yet he confirmed no recent cost benefit analysis specifically on CHSP abolition exists, and any such work “may have been some ways back pre Royal Commission times.”
Inspector-General Natalie Siegel-Brown was blunt: “I’ve received nothing about timelines, rationale. Before the transition itself can even be orchestrated or planned, we need public information on the rationale and modelling assumptions for that transition decision.” She described the sector as “on the cusp of significant structural change without any clarity about why we’re doing it.”
Departmental Deputy Secretary Sonia Stewart acknowledged ongoing advice to government on “a range of options” but refused to commit to when decisions might be made or when providers and older people would receive clarity.
When pressed by Senator Anne Ruston on when the sector would know what the post 2027 program looks like, Stewart replied: “That will be a decision of government.” Ruston responded: “You’re not giving me a lot of confidence.”
This opacity leaves 1,300 CHSP providers, many small, volunteer reliant and operating in thin markets, unable to recruit, invest or plan. As Siegel-Brown warned: “That uncertainty right now, 18 months out from July 2027, is already constraining availability. People are wondering what the viability of their service is.”
Absence of transparent cost benefit justification
No witness could produce recent, published evidence showing that merging CHSP into Support at Home would deliver better value for taxpayers or outcomes for older people. CHSP is block funded, low burden and preventative. It keeps frail older Australians out of hospitals and delays entry into far more expensive residential care. Yet officials conceded no contemporary cost benefit analysis exists to justify abolition.
Siegel-Brown called for exactly that: “Before we even consider whether we do a transition at all, we need to do a cost benefit analysis of the preventative impacts that CHSP has in keeping people out of residential care for longer and out of hospitals for longer.” She noted emerging evidence that certain CHSP elements, such as home modifications, can save up to 40 per cent of direct care costs.
Departmental witnesses acknowledged they are scoping similar work but offered no timeline beyond “on our forward work plan.” When Ruston asked whether an updated analysis would be prudent given visible price increases under Support at Home, Stewart agreed it was “essential” but provided no commitment on delivery.
The absence of justification is particularly stark when set against testimony that CHSP delivers identical services far more cheaply. Meals on Wheels CEO Claudia Odell explained that under CHSP her service receives around $14.13 per subsidised meal unit, with clients paying $10 to $12, while Support at Home clients can face $69 for the same three course meal.
Ruston pressed officials on why a proven, cost efficient program is being dismantled without clear evidence of gain.
Contradictory messaging and backtracking on certainty
Departmental evidence oscillated between firm commitment and vagueness. Stewart initially described transition as a “government commitment” but later qualified that it could involve “a range of options,” “slight adjustment to Support at Home,” or even “a different model.”
When Ruston asked whether every one of the 835,000 CHSP recipients would move across, Stewart first appeared to confirm, then retreated: “That is an option.”
Pugh reinforced the ambiguity: “There could be Support at Home with CHSP transitioning in. It could be a different model. There are a whole range of options.” This equivocation undermines trust. Providers cannot plan workforce, infrastructure or service continuity when the very existence of block funding, the backbone of CHSP’s flexibility, remains uncertain.
Failure to learn from Support at Home implementation failures
Witness after witness highlighted serious, visible problems in Support at Home: higher prices for identical services, unaffordable co contributions for basic supports, administrative burden driving volunteer withdrawal, and 60 per cent package offers leaving gaps that CHSP currently fills.
Meals on Wheels reported clients transitioning to Support at Home then begging to “opt out” and return to CHSP because meals jumped from $10 to $12 to $69.
Siegel-Brown’s inbox is “flooded” with complaints: “People are writing to me saying they can no longer afford their continence pads. They can’t go out in public because they’ve got no way of ensuring that there won’t be any bladder or bowel leakage.” She questioned why CHSP would be merged into a program “predictably bearing out serious problems in practice.”
Departmental witnesses acknowledged pricing construct differences and some cost increases but downplayed their scale. They offered no concrete plan to prevent the same issues being imported into CHSP, despite repeated calls from peaks and providers to retain block funding for meals, transport and social support.
Existential threat to thin markets, rural and remote services and Meals on Wheels
The most vivid evidence came from Leanne Wright, Service Manager of Blayney Meals on Wheels.
Covering vast unsealed roads in a thin market with 19 per cent of the population over 65, projected to reach 25 to 27 per cent by 2030, her service is often the only provider and the first point of contact for isolated elders. She described delivering welfare checks, hoarder and squalor assessments, pantry and freezer audits for malnutrition risks, and same day or next day meals at provider cost during assessment delays of three to eight months.
Wright warned that Support at Home’s retrospective fee for service model would make delivery impossible without upfront block funding: “We are the only provider in town. These people are so isolated. We don’t have transport. We don’t have a bus. We don’t have a train.” She reported already overperforming funded targets by 32 per cent, subsidising demand through community support, yet facing waitlists.
Siegel-Brown reinforced the risk: “In those thin markets these CHSP service providers can be the only providers we’ve got.” If they become unviable, “we lose that core of culturally tailored programs” and community connection. Officials provided no reassurance that block funding or low administrative burden would survive.
Conclusion: Reform without evidence is recklessness
Last week’s hearing exposed a government reform trajectory proceeding without transparent modelling, without firm timelines beyond a distant “no sooner than,” and without addressing the already evident failures of the program it seeks to absorb.
Uncertainty is not a side effect. It is actively destabilising a cherished, cost effective safety net that keeps hundreds of thousands of older Australians independent and connected.
As Siegel-Brown warned: “If this transition is mishandled, we risk losing the program’s breadth and its very ability to delay entry into high acuity care. We could be creating real preventable harm to older Australians who want to age with dignity in their own homes.”
With the committee due to report by 15 April 2026, the onus is now on the government to produce the evidence, commit to timelines, and demonstrate that merger will strengthen, not erode, the foundational supports older Australians rely on. Until then, the sector and the community it serves are left waiting in the dark.
