QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Mr RAE (Hawke—Minister for Aged Care and Seniors) (15:02): I thank the member for his question. It stands to reason—certainly any reasonable person's judgement—that no-one in this place wants any older Australian to pass away waiting for the care that they deserve. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety examined exactly this.
At the peak of the aged-care crisis, which was around 2018, more than 16,000 older Australians were dying on the waiting list each year, approved for what was then a home-care package but passing away before they ever received it. It's why the commission recommended that the aged-care system should be better at supporting Australians to age in place and to receive those services quickly to keep them healthier at home for longer.
This parliament acted on those recommendations together on a bipartisan basis through the new Aged Care Act and the Support at Home program that began on 1 November. That number today is still too high, but the number of people dying while waiting for care has significantly reduced, and the way we're bringing those tragic deaths down further is by investing to cut wait times for Support at Home services.
The latest data shows that standard-priority cases are now waiting, on average, three months less. Medium-priority cases are waiting around two months less. High-priority wait times are now just one to two months, and, as always, those assessed as urgent priority are always allocated their full funding within a month.
Our investment of $47 billion in the aged-care system next year, including an extra 32,000 new Support at Home places on top of the 83,000 that we finished delivering today will continue our work to drive these wait times down. There's much more work to do to ensure that the system moves faster and is more responsive to older people's needs. Our job is to get those wait times down further and get care to people faster, no matter where they live.
The number is the same as it has been for some time. It has been reported publicly, and I have given it in this House. It is distressing that, last financial year, 4,812 Australians were on that list.
We have made significant progress, but, for all of those people and the older people to come, we'll continue that work to deliver on the promise of the royal commission and provide the safe, dignified care that every older Australian deserves.