Reckless Labor Risks Lives As Aged Care Reforms Unravel

A Greens-chaired Senate inquiry has slammed the government’s plan to terminate a critical feature of Australia’s aged care system, in yet another blow to Labor’s unravelling aged care reforms.

The consensus report recommended that the government not proceed with its plan to fold the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) into the newly created Support at Home (SAH) system, which after only eight months is already creaking under the weight of its flaws.

The CHSP is a program that supports more than 800,000 older people with entry-level in-home aged care support that helps them live independently. Funded by government grants paid directly to providers, it focuses on reablement, keeping recipients out of more intensive care for longer.

The scathing report, tabled yesterday, clearly spells out the catastrophic consequences Labor’s proposal will have for older Australians, particularly First Nations people and regional, rural and remote communities.

Some of the most pointed criticisms include:

“[I]f similar changes are made to the existing co-contribution model for CHSP

services, this will significantly increase service costs, resulting in older people, particularly those who face the greatest vulnerability, foregoing necessary care when they need it in order to afford other basic essentials. This in turn would entirely undermine the preventative intent of the CHSP by further accelerating cognitive and physical deterioration, driving older people into higher cost and more intensive models of care and hindering independence.” – Natalie Siegel-Brown, Inspector-General of Aged Care

“Most CHSP providers are not-for-profits or charities and are often delivering early childhood services or homelessness services, saying: ‘We’ll just do those things. We won’t do aged care anymore because it’s too hard.’ That would be an absolutely devastating blow, particularly to small communities.” – Tom Symondson, Ageing Australia

“Small, specialised, and community-based organisations are particularly vulnerable. The loss of such providers would erode critical community infrastructure, remove local capacity, reduce choice for older people, and leave entire regions or communities without essential services.” – Australian Association of Gerontology

The inquiry also heard that the government had not produced any modelling to show that such a transition is even possible, let alone desirable, while they had also failed to produce a clear plan or timeline for its implementation.

Support at Home is already buckling, with a waitlist of over 200,000 and older people all over the country forced to abandon critical in-home supports because of soaring co-payments.

Labor has been forced into several humiliating backdowns on aged care in the past 12 months, including being forced by the parliament to release 20,000 more home care packages, backtracking on some co-payments, and launching a rapid review into its disastrous assessment algorithm.

The Greens were alone in their opposition to Labor’s Aged Care Act when it passed through parliament in November 2024.

Comments from Australian Greens Older People spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Labor’s reckless proposal to kill off the CHSP has no friends. Advocates, providers, unions, experts, First Nations organisations, local governments – no one wants this.

“By rushing into yet another massive change to the aged care system without adequate data or a clear plan, Labor is putting older people’s lives at risk.

“It is entirely inconceivable how Support at Home – a system already under massive strain – will cope with an additional 800,000 people being forced onto it as soon as a year from now.

“Nearly a million people will suddenly find themselves trapped in a rationed, market-based system, treated like revenue streams and forced to make choices about what essential care or support they’ll have to sacrifice.

“This model is more of the same right-wing market fundamentalism that Labor is in love with, despite the fact that it consistently fails to meet people’s care needs.

“The CHSP provides a vital service affordably to older Australians. Instead of eliminating it, Labor should listen to the evidence and start funding it properly.”