Senator Penny Allman-Payne has delivered a scathing assessment of the Albanese Government’s aged care reforms, describing them as a profound betrayal of older Australians who have paid taxes their entire lives in the expectation of support when they need it most.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Queensland Greens senator spoke candidly about how Labor campaigned strongly on aged care after the Royal Commission but, she said, ignored its central funding recommendations and instead engineered a system that has pushed many seniors into debt and stress.
“It’s really woeful,” Senator Allman-Payne said. “In a wealthy country like Australia, it’s appalling that people, most of whom have paid taxes their whole lives and thought that their country and their government was going to look after them, have really been thrown under the bus at the time that they need the government most.”
The government has repeatedly promoted the new Aged Care Act as delivering a rights-based framework. Senator Allman-Payne dismissed this as empty rhetoric. The legislation includes a statement of rights, but the very next section declares that nothing in it gives rise to any recourse in a tribunal or court of law.
“That tells you everything you need to know,” she said. The Greens tried to amend the bill to make the rights enforceable but were blocked by the Coalition and providers. “Older people are the ones who bear the brunt of decisions that are being made really in favour of the people who are profiting off aged care.”
Under the new Support at Home program, self-funded retirees without a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card now face co-payments of up to 80 per cent on everyday living services. Some are already forgoing basic care.
Senator Allman-Payne recounted a conversation with a Brisbane provider about older men in hostel-style accommodation who need daily showers. “In order for them to get showers every day, which many of them need, it would cost them an additional $298 a week. And they’ve just turned around and said, that’s not a service we can afford anymore.”
She warned this is a false economy. “If older people who need assistance with showering don’t get it, there are going to be flow-on impacts in relation to their overall health. And that’s just going to cost the system more.”
The senator pointed to chronic rationing, a direct rejection of the Royal Commission’s core recommendation to end it. At the end of last year, more than a quarter of a million older Australians were waiting for care, including those awaiting assessment or CHSP services. The government plans to release only 83,000 home care packages this financial year.
Compounding the crisis is the planned transition of the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, which supports around 800,000 people, into Support at Home no earlier than July 2027. Senator Allman-Payne questioned how the system could absorb that influx when it cannot clear existing backlogs.
“We’ve got unnecessary hospital admissions. We’ve got people dying waiting for care,” she said. “Yet we have one in three big corporations in this country that doesn’t pay tax at all. And rather than have the courage to go after the big corporations and the billionaires who actually should pay their fair share, they go after vulnerable older people.”
The senator was particularly critical of the closed-door negotiations between Labor and the Coalition that shaped the financial elements of the reforms. Both parties, she said, were “on a unity ticket” when the legislation passed in late 2024. Now the Coalition is trying to distance itself from the consequences.
Senator Allman-Payne’s call to renationalise aged care is grounded in the sector’s own past. Before the Aged Care Act 1997, introduced under the Howard Government, which deregulated the industry and opened the door to large-scale for-profit providers, care was delivered primarily by government and not-for-profit organisations. Staffing rules were stricter, with fixed portions of funding required to go directly to care rather than profit, and long-term employees received ongoing training.
The for-profit share of residential places rose sharply after 1997, from about 27 per cent in 2000 to over 40 per cent today, while public provision fell from 10 per cent to around 4 per cent.
Data from the Royal Commission and independent studies consistently show government-run facilities deliver higher quality care. Residents in government homes are far less likely to be hospitalised for falls, one in 15 versus one in 8.6 in for-profit homes, or pressure injuries.
During COVID-19, state government-run facilities experienced dramatically better outcomes, with very few cases and no deaths in some jurisdictions, in contrast to widespread outbreaks in many private homes.
Senator Allman-Payne said the evidence is clear. “If you turn something into a profit-driven system, somebody’s got to make money out of it. Wouldn’t we be better off pulling it back, renationalising aged care? Like it used to be delivered before John Howard, aged care was delivered by government and it was the best that aged care ever operated. You had long-term employees, people getting ongoing professional development and training.”
The senator’s message is unambiguous. The Greens are the only party consistently calling for the removal of for-profit providers from aged care.
“We need to get rid of this for-profit system of care. We need to completely undo this financialisation and profiteering in the aged care sector and get back to what governments are supposed to do, and that is redistribute wealth so that we have the capacity in our budgets to look after people and give them the care that they need at the time that they need it.”
She has secured two Senate inquiries this year, one into the CHSP transition, with hearings starting soon, and a longer one into Support at Home, to build evidence of the reforms’ failures and pressure the government to reconsider co-payments and the profit-driven model.
For older Australians and their families, the senator’s words carry a simple but powerful warning: the current path is unsustainable, and only a return to a fully public system can restore the dignity and security seniors were promised.
