Lipstick on a pig: The Government’s Support at Home submission doesn’t survive scrutiny

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s submission to the Senate inquiry into Support at Home presents the program as increasingly accessible, equitable and affordable. It highlights falling estimated wait times, more places, stronger consumer protections and changes intended to improve fairness.

Yet several of the Department’s own figures and qualifications undermine that claim, revealing a widening gap between official assurances and reality on the ground.

The clearest example is the claim that 364,723 people had access to ongoing Support at Home services as at 31 March 2026. The submission uses this number to argue that more older Australians than ever before now receive government-funded aged care. Later it notes that 355,795 of those people held a transitioned Home Care Package approval. Roughly 97.5 per cent were already in the previous system.

In plain terms, almost everyone in that big headline number was already getting help before Support at Home even existed. The figure is not necessarily inaccurate, but it does not show that the new program has brought large numbers of new people into care.

No comparable number of genuine new entrants is provided. Presenting transitioned clients as evidence of expanded access is a convenient form of double-counting that inflates success while obscuring how many older Australians remain outside the system altogether.

A further qualification matters. People approved for Support at Home are allocated funding “when it becomes available.” Assessment, approval, funding and the start of services are distinct stages.

An older person can be approved without immediately receiving the support they have been assessed as needing. Put simply: getting the official tick of approval is not the same as actually getting someone through the door to help you. That bureaucratic distinction is not a technicality, it is the difference between a system that works on paper and one that is actually failing.

Seven to eight months, or almost 12?

The submission states that Support at Home wait times “have improved since October 2025.” As at 31 March 2026, estimated waits ranged from less than one month for urgent-priority applicants to seven to eight months for standard priority, down from a previous estimate of 10 to 11 months.

A separate official measure tells a different story. The Aged Care Act 2024 Wait Times Report, released in May, found that the average time from application through My Aged Care to the commencement of Support at Home services was 364 days, one day shy of a full year.

The two figures measure different things: the shorter one is an estimated wait at a particular allocation point; the longer one tracks the full journey from application to services starting. Both are relevant. The seven-to-eight-month figure shows limited improvement in one part of the process. The 364-day figure shows how long many older people still wait before care begins. The Department chooses to emphasise the more flattering measure while downplaying the more damning one.

A system still being adjusted

The submission describes Support at Home as equitable and person-centred, yet admits that key elements remain under review. The Government has commissioned a three-month rapid review of the prioritisation mechanism “to ensure the system is operating as intended.” It is also establishing an escalation pathway for people with complex circumstances who “may not be fully captured by current arrangements.”

These steps concede that the mechanism deciding who receives support, and when, is still flawed. If some people’s needs are not adequately captured, the inquiry should examine how many are affected and what happens to them while they wait, often for months on end without the basic care they require.

Future reforms presented alongside current performance

A similar pattern appears in the discussion of participant contributions. The Department presents the arrangements as part of a “fairer system.” Personal care, including showering, dressing and non-clinical continence management, will not move into the fully government-funded clinical category until 1 October 2026.

That change may prove significant, but it is a future reform, not evidence of how the system operates now. Older Australians needing help with the most basic daily tasks are still bearing costs the Government itself has acknowledged should be covered.

On provider pricing, the Department states there is “no evidence that providers have systematically set prices that are unreasonable.” It also outlines additional consumer protections, including refund powers, public reporting and a national quarterly summary of prices.

The reassuring conclusion is given greater weight than the underlying data. The submission does not report how many prices have been reviewed, how many were judged unreasonable, or how many consumers have received refunds. Asserting the absence of a problem while withholding the evidence needed to test the claim is not transparency.

Look beyond the brochure

Submission 85 contains useful information. The release of 79,145 ongoing places in the March quarter is substantial, and the reduction in the estimated standard-priority wait is a genuine improvement on that narrow measure. Yet the document is strongest when describing what the Government has designed, funded, reviewed or plans to introduce.

It is far weaker when showing what older Australians are actually experiencing. In other words, the promise and the lived reality are polar opposites, and the gap is not abstract. Prolonged waits for essential home care leave vulnerable seniors without help with personal care, mobility and daily living. For some, those delays are costing them their lives.

For the Senate inquiry, the distinctions matter. Being counted as having access is not the same as receiving services. An approval is not funding, and a funding allocation is not necessarily care commencing. Improvements should be weighed against the longer average waiting times reported elsewhere, the ongoing prioritisation review and reforms that have yet to take effect. The Government’s preferred metrics paint a picture of steady progress.

The evidence inside its own submission points to a system still failing too many of the people it is meant to serve.