Dear Ministers,
We welcome your fresh eyes to address the Aged Care model that terrifies not only informed advocates and consumers but also providers who are soon to be debt collectors.
The blanket user pays system of Support at Home will destitute tens of thousands of vulnerable older people who are managing complex health and disability.
We ask for good old Labor platform compassion.
The single aged pension with supplements is $29,874; for a combined couple, it is $45,037.20. The average household income
is $120,000; people living on less than half of that are living in poverty.
Further to this financial hardship, the aged, frail and disabled are asked to pay upwards of 20% of their deemed income for Support at Home.
Currently 88% of home care package recipients are recognised by Services Australia as struggling financially and do not pay an income-tested fee.
Support at home must do what it says in name. We implore you to consult with those most affected by the changes to aged care, not just pay homage to paid advocacy groups such as the Council of Elders, COTA and OPAN.
We implore all decision makers in government to listen to those providers who know that the new Support at Home program is not ready to start on 1 July 2025. The minister needs to hear from people with lived experience who will be forced to make stay at home decisions based on their ability to pay.
We have met and discussed our concerns with senior department heads, the newly appointed aged care Inspector General, Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, Interim First Nations Commissioner for Aged Care, COTA, OPAN, provider groups and individual members of the task forces; each time our concerns been validated and we have been referred back to the minister.
Enough is enough.
Too many people without lived experience have had the opportunity to make career gains from adding bits to this Aged Care Act and programs that fail to meet basic need as requested by the independent voices of those who receive support and those who directly provide the care.
Zero Safey Net
The promised safety nets and hardship provisions are meaningless as the following example from the department demonstrates.
Case Study 2: Sue is a single part pensioner. (A new entrant to Support at Home) Sue’s income is $40,000 per year, including pension income of $25,260. Sue owns her home and has non-financial assets of $100,000. She was approved for home care in March 2025.
When SAH begins on 1 July 2025 Sue’s income and assets will be assessed, and she will pay the standard contribution rates required. Based on the assessment of her income and assets, Sue’s contribution rates from 1 July 2025 will be:
0% for clinical services
9.4% for independence services
23.7% for everyday living services
$100 per hour is the medium price of services, summary of indicative Support at Home prices. Twelve hours is a minimum for a person managing disability and complex need for Independent and Everyday living services. Services included 3 showers per week, household cleaning, clothes washing, meal preparation, supplementary meals on wheels, weekly shopping, social support, light gardening, and transport to medical appointments.
Independent living: 6hrs x $100 = $600 @ 9.4% = $56.4 per week $2,932.8 p.a.
Everyday living: 6hrs x $100 = $600 @ 23.7% = $142.2 per week $7,394.4 p.a.
Sues ‘contribution’ is $198.60 per week, $10,327.20 p.a. = 25.8% of $40,000 deemed income. For Sue to stay at home she would need to cull meal delivery, all everyday living services such as cleaning and gardening and cut down on showers, transport and social support.
Sue will be forced into residential care where $120,000 is the subsidy per resident. $120,000 is more than twice the average subsidy for Support at Home, which ranges from $11,000 to $78,000.
Pensioners, people on low incomes and their families are expected to pay upwards of 20% of deemed income to remain with family and friends in their own homes.
Complex health is more than just care needs; it affects all we do every day and how we do it. Those most alone are not only those without family. Families are already overloaded by gap fees and unpaid carer support for those they most love.
We ask the ministers
1. To NOT sign off in the New Aged Care ‘rules’ in their current form
2. To follow the advice that the start of Support at Home must be rescheduled from 1 July 2025 to 1 July 2026. The Department, Providers and Systems are not in sync nor ready. The maths do not work!
3. To listen to the people that receive and provide direct care, not just the paid advocates.
Yours most sincerely,
Paul Absalom NT, Lesley Forster WA, Peter Freckelton Vic, Peter McRae SA, Jenn Quilligan Vic, Stella Perkins NSW, Sue Watts Tas, Peter Willcocks Vic.
It’s insane. Why are the nursing and support rates for helping the elderly so much higher than what they are for NDIS. It makes so sense. Imagine charging 100 an hour for a shower for elderly. But then charging 67 for NDIS for the same services. Is that not agism ? Not to mention the prices suggested for nursing etc. it’s not sustainable. The elderly aren’t getting the care they need already and now the costs are increasing and they need to contribute money they don’t have? Where is the logic. It is so much more expensive to place someone in a aged care home. Isn’t Australia ment to repress choice and control and to support the vulnerable to live their best life meeting appropriate levels of basic daily living, not Live below the poverty line and not be able to access the care they actually need!!!
Signed by an RN that trys to help the elderly
Thank you for your understanding, consideration and acknowledgment of the reality in which the Aged will now find themselves in.
It defies logic and reasoning when viewed by rational individuals.
It has to stop!
I am a single age pensioner . I own my home, modest 40 year old brick house in rural qld town. I have less than $40,000 in savings. I am a cancer survivor. I don’t get any help as yet. But am finding keeping my yard tidy and find things like mopping floors window cleaning very difficult. So my house doesn’t get cleaned as often as I’d like. I was thinking of asking for home support. But from the sounds of things I couldn’t afford it. So I will just battle on.
This is ludicrous and amplifies the Age Care NDIS Apartheid. Charging $100ph is DOUBLE what Monash paid me as a casual-and then only AFTER proving I had a PhD! Let alone the carefully appalling rates.. they are clearly designed specifically to force people in efforts to stay at home to do ALL the hiring etc.. and to try not to do it in cash. All the time. The appalling discrimination against those who didnt manage to get into the luxurious NDIS is obviously because the government thought that we octogenarians wont last long and have no voice- and we can be certain that the COATS, OPANs etc will hardly expert themselves much for the oldest groups (just going on the evidence, not the rthetoric)
Has this been sent to Federal ministers?
I would like to send to Patrick Gorman in Perth WA.
Can you send to his office or send me a PDF, so I can send and try and get an appt to see him?
Thank you Jennifer
Our kids and others need to know this. Those who love us will be asked to do more or witness the consequences of this program. Those I share this information with – taxpayers – are horrified.
Aged Care is a business.
1. To go into an Aged Care Facility is up to $460,000 deposit.
2. Plus how much the Government gives to these Aged Care Facilities per resident.
3. Only 10% of beds are available for non deposit residents/ Elderly only on a pension.
4. To go into retirement village its cost a weekly rate
5. You loss all captial gains of the uniy you buy.
6 The retirement villages are allowed to take up to .44% off the purchase price when you leave or die.
Why is this allowed that these private Aged Care Facilities and Retirement Villages can take so much of ines hard earnt money.
Pensions were paid for by the PEOPLE to ensure all our elderly had quality’s of life not send them broke, leaving their families less inheritance. Why?
Without tax payers the Government has no money to spend.
Home Care Packages are to help keep the elderly/frail/disabled out of Aged Care Facilities to be able to live at home as long as possible
Home Care Packages should not be means tested for anyone on an Aged Pension.
Why, because Centrelink means test you before you can get a Aged Pension