QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr RAE (Hawke—Minister for Aged Care and Seniors) (14:27): I thank the member for Mayo for her question and acknowledge the very constructive way that she engages with me and my office in her representation of older people within the electorate of Mayo. As we know, our aged-care system is in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. We had a royal commission that exposed some of the most profound moral injustice being inflicted upon older people in our community.

Since we were elected in 2022, this Prime Minister and this government have explicitly remained committed to restructuring the entire sector, whether it be within the residential aged-care space, to which the member's question refers, or the in-home-care space. Last Friday, an important step was taken in the residential space, with Minister Butler and the state health ministers agreeing on a new national definition of 'delayed discharge of older person'—rather, Friday, a week back.

This agreed definition means that there will be, for the first time, consistent data on this issue that the member's question raises about older people who can't be discharged from public hospitals. But the approach can't just be about agreements. It's about putting our money where our mouth is.

Earlier this year, the Albanese Labor government secured a historic hospital funding deal with state and territory governments, with an extra $25 billion delivered to state and territory hospital systems to cut waiting lists, reduce waiting times in emergency rooms and get long-stay older patients out of hospital. In March we announced an extra investment of $115 million, building on the $1 billion investment in previous rounds of the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, to rapidly expand residential aged-care capacity in metropolitan Adelaide and Perth and in the Illawarra and Hunter regions of New South Wales.

These are hotspot areas in the greatest need of more residential aged-care beds. In July we announced outcomes for the first round, with nearly $26 million across six homes creating an extra 73 beds in the Illawarra, and $34½ million to support 268 new beds across five sites in Adelaide. The member's question also pertained to Support at Home and CHSP.

Of course, we've got 830,000 Australians receiving care under the Commonwealth Home Support Program and roughly 400,000 Australians receiving care under Support at Home. That Support at Home system has nearly tripled since 2020, under our government and the investments that we've made. Wait times are coming down under Support at Home, and people who are assessed as 'urgent priority'— Mr Hogan interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Page is now warned.

Mr RAE: always receive their packages within a month, and people who are assessed as 'high priority' have about a month's wait time. The other priority levels have come down, on average, about three months.