TV interview with Minister Rae, News24 – 12 August 2026

Media event date: 12 August 2026 Date published: 12 August 2026 Media type: General public TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me live now, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Sam Rae. Thank you for your time. The word in your press release that struck me, ‘more to do’.

So what are the targets for these three priorities? How many months should each people, each cohort have to wait? SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: Well, Tom, you're absolutely right.

Wait times are coming down across the board, and that's critical. The best thing that we can do for older people in the community is reduce the amount of time that they're waiting to get the care that they deserve. And when I say there's more work to do, we are only partially through a generational reform of our aged care system.

Everyone remembers the Aged Care Royal Commission - you might remember that mononymous report they issued, neglect, under the previous government. This work, this is many years of work. It is sustained investment.

It is ongoing reform that is required to build an entire new age care system that meets the needs of an ageing population now and into the future. And what can you get to? Because if you don't have a target, then some would argue you can't be properly assessed.

What can those categories be? Government's been very clear that our ambition is to bring wait times down to three months overall. So, as you said- For anyone waiting?

So as you said, people who are assessed as urgent priority, they already get their packages, always under a month. People who are high priority get theirs within about a month. Those other priority levels, they've come down three months already, and we’re going to keep driving that down.

So medium is five to six at the moment that someone in that often can't clean their house, do chores, get to appointments, make meals, sometimes might need help with showering as well. Five to six months, it's a long time for them to either go without or maybe a parent sorting out their kids, sorting out their parent at the same time. That’s way too long still, isn't it?

It's why we want to keep driving them down, Tom. We've made ground. That's why I keep saying we've got to understand the things that are working about the system, identify that those wait times are coming down.

But as you point out, there's more work to do. That's why this sustained investment, this focus of the government, has to remain. And when will three months get hit?

Well, we've already said that that is our ambition. We're seeing those wait times continue to come down at the moment. The ambition is that by the middle of next year, we're getting people within that three-month band.

The middle of next year, anyone going for aged care in the home gets services within three months is the aim. Well, no. People who are urgent will absolutely still get there within a month.

So medium and standard priority within three months. That's right. And they've already come down three months since Support at Home started, but we want to get them to three months overall, correct.

All right. That’s one worth checking back on because there's no lack of ambition, I guess, is the way I’ll phrase that. We need to be ambitious.

Older people deserve that ambition. What about the phasing out of the Commonwealth Home Support Program? Because people are still being placed on it and given codes, but in some examples, providers, there's not a single provider for the program.

There are codes in Canberra that they issue and you're part of that, then you literally call every provider, they say, we don't do that anymore. Why is that happening? So, the Commonwealth Home Support Program, there's 830,000 Australians who are eligible for services at the moment for that, Tom.

That is, essentially, the baseline of care. It's largely community-based services provided by, in some cases, not-for-profit organisations or local government. This is a critical type of care that is delivered to older people.

We are committed to maintaining those services. There's work to be done to understand what the relationship between those basic service provisions are along with side Support at Home, which is a slightly higher, more tailored level of care. Because ones that are being phased out and then, in the interim though, codes are being issued.

Well, no. We need to move away from this phasing out language. What we're doing at the moment is understanding how we continue to deliver those services, those core services, largely community-based, engaging people all across the community including volunteers.

We're committed to continuing to deliver those services, the relationship with that higher level Support at Home program, and maintaining all of the amazing service providers that we've got in that ecosystem. Why would it be now, if you've got a Commonwealth Home Support Program package and you get a code under that, some services are not available anywhere in your area?

Well, this goes to the broader challenge that we've got in the aged care space, Tom. This is one of the great public policy challenges of our time. We've got an ageing population, and people sometimes misunderstand quite how drastic that impact is.

This year, 90,000 Australians will have an 80th birthday. That's 600 per cent growth in the last 15 years. So when you think about that in terms of the public policy response that's required, it puts it into perspective.

Take our Support at Home program for example. By the end of this year, it will have nearly tripled since 2020. So growth in demand is very challenging to meet.

We need to continue and invest, and we need to recruit the workers. Which you were saying today, and you were saying, look, here's how big the aged care worker pay increase is. It's a lot of money though, isn't it?

So $4 billion a year for the budget, and that's, basically, money you'll have to spend forever, right? That money- I know you say investment - it's also money, taxpayer money. It’s lot of money to spend.

Tom, these are or have been the lowest paid workers in our economy. We were struggling. Part of the reason that we got to a royal commission in the first place under the Libs, we were struggling to keep good people in the sector.

You can't have the very best nurses, you can't have the very best personal care workers, unless you pay them properly. That's what the Fair Work finding was all about. Yeah, but it's the government aspect of guaranteeing underwriting that.

And then childcare will have to be the same, right? That'll have to be a permanent picking up of the tab. Well, Tom, hang on.

Aged care is my special topic. It's the ricochet, isn't it? Care workers, and once you pay one cohort and go, we're going to pay you properly, the next cohort will say, what about us?

Well, let's come back to aged care workers for a second. We want our older people to get the very best care within either residential aged care or in-home aged care. We're not going to get that unless we pay people a fair wage.

Aged care nurses have had five wage rises under our Government. Personal care workers have had four. For a registered nurse - and remember that we've had to put registered nurses in aged care 24/7 - that's worth 36 grand a year to the average registered nurse.

And that's why we're keeping them in the sector to provide that level of care that's required. Just wanted to ask quickly about the over-65s’ private health insurance rebate, so the extra rebate scrapped. The Government says it will lead to about a one per cent reduction in cover.

Everyone in the industry polling says it'll be a lot higher. So if it's higher, what then? Do you have to rethink this if the strain on the public system isn't worth the money you save?

Let's go back to first principles here, Tom. Traditionally, or over the last certainly a significant period of time, people who were over a certain age got a higher rebate than people who are under that age. It didn't matter what their household income looked like.

What we've done is levelled that out. So it doesn't matter how old you are, everybody gets that rebate based on their income. I understand that, but this is about unintended consequences.

Is this being monitored? Like, if the impact on public health system is bigger than the saving, there's no point in the policy, is there? But let's talk about why the saving.

But I'm asking if it will be a saving. Is there any way that government is measuring the saving against what might be a bigger impact or impost on the public health system? Well, of course, we're always monitoring what the impacts are on health systems of our policy changes.

So, absolutely, yes, it’s geared to that. There's got to be a net saving to be worth it. Absolutely.

But we've taken the savings from the private health insurance adjustments, remembering that there's now a more equitable outcome for people all across the community in that space. Everyone still gets a rebate but it's based on their income, not their age now. Minister, got to leave it there.

Thank you. Thanks, Tom. The Hon Sam Rae MP Accessibility We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community.

We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to Elders both past and present. © Commonwealth of Australia