In a grating display of political sidestepping, Aged Care Minister Sam Rae took to ABC Radio Sydney’s airwaves late last week, to offer a masterclass in bureaucratic bluster.
Host Hamish Macdonald pressed Rae on the government’s failure to release the 80,000 promised Home Care Packages which have been delayed until the November 1 start date of the Aged Care Act, apparently to avoid increasing the administration burden.
What unfolded was a parade of platitudes, vague promises, and a thinly veiled attempt to shirk responsibility for leaving older Australians stranded.
Take the case of Kathy and Alan Whelan, a Sydney couple whose plight epitomizes the human cost of this debacle. Alan, confined to a wheelchair by a progressive neurodegenerative disease, has been waiting since 2023 for a Home Care Package that includes a simple ramp to access his own home.
After a year-long assessment process, they’re still left dangling, with Alan reportedly tumbling into the garden due to the absence of this basic necessity. Rae’s response? A half-hearted acknowledgment of their “distressing” situation, followed by a claim that a “pathway to resolution” exists without specifics, of course.
Rae’s defense of the Home Care Package delays leaned heavily on the narrative of systemic overhaul, without any acknowledgement of the reality that people are literally dying or ending up in residential care prematurely as a result of the delays.
The new Support at Home program, he insisted, will revolutionize in-home care come November. Yet his refusal to confirm how many packages could be released before then, only admitting to an average of 2,700 weekly, reeked of obfuscation.
When pressed by Macdonald for a hard number, Rae danced around the question, cloaking his non-answer in talk of “factors” and “reform processes.” It’s the kind of verbal gymnastics that leaves listeners wondering if the minister knows the numbers or simply doesn’t want to admit they’re insufficient.
When confronted with criticism from Senator David Pocock, who highlighted the “real human cost” of these delays, more hospitalizations, premature residential care, and even deaths, Rae’s response was predictably prickly.
He accused Pocock of “weaponizing” the issue for political gain, conveniently ignoring the senator’s point about older Australians suffering in real time.
Rae’s insistence that the Home Care delays are tied to the broader Aged Care Act overhaul felt like a bureaucratic excuse, especially when a home care worker, Margaret, noted that providers in southwest Sydney could take on dozens of packages immediately if only the government would release them. Rae’s rebuttal? A vague promise of weekly releases and a pivot back to his reform gospel.
The NDIS changes announced the day prior didn’t fare much better under scrutiny. Rae touted the Thriving Kids program, designed to shift children with mild to moderate autism away from NDIS reliance toward community-based supports.
He claimed this would be an improvement, painting a rosy picture of school-based therapies and equitable care.
But his assurances felt hollow, lacking detail on how these supports would match the NDIS’s standards or address the fears of parents whose children face an uncertain transition. It’s hard not to see this as a cost-cutting exercise dressed up as compassion, with Rae banking on buzzwords like “sustainability” to mask potential service gaps.
Rae’s repeated fallback to the Royal Commission’s findings on “neglect” only underscored the irony: a system still failing its most vulnerable, with the minister offering little more than future-focused rhetoric.
As a Senate inquiry looms to probe the human toll of these delays, Rae’s assurances that “we’re releasing packages every single week” feel like cold comfort to those like Kathy, Alan, and countless others left waiting.
If this is what an “overhaul” looks like, Australians might be forgiven for wondering whether the government’s priorities lie with glossy reform packages or the people they’re meant to serve.
For now, it seems, the vulnerable will just have to hold on, assuming they can make it to November.
