Minister confirms aged care funding model a first-sitting priority
“Come hell or high water” the Albanese Government will introduce legislation in the next two weeks to deliver the aged care sector’s new funding model on time, says Minister for Aged Care Anika Wells.
The Albanese Government will introduce legislation in the next two weeks to deliver the aged care sector’s new funding model on time, Minister for Aged Care Anika Wells has told Australian Ageing Agenda. The legislation will be introduced ‘come hell or high water,’ the minister said on an exclusive interview with AAA.
The first parliamentary sitting under the Albanese Government is scheduled to sit for seven days from Tuesday 26 July to Thursday 4 August.
The Australian National Aged Care Classification, or AN-ACC, is due to replace the Aged Care Funding Instrument as the residential aged care sector’s funding model from 1 October. Ms Wells has been working on drafting an a new Bill to present to parliament in the first sitting.
“Come hell or high water we will be introducing legislation in the first parliamentary fortnight to deliver the AN-ACC funding model that the entire sector is waiting and relying upon,” Ms Wells told AAA this week.
The previous legislation to replace ACFI with AN-ACC – Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021 – was introduced in September 2021 but failed to pass before former prime minister Scott Morrison called the federal election in April this year.
“The fact that was allowed to lapse in the previous parliament, [that] the Morrison Government could not even motivate themselves to get that through, speaks to the neglect of this area under the former government because everyone is in a holding pattern waiting for that model to be legislated,” Ms Wells said.
“It is bipartisan. It’s not contentious. We’ve got to bring that back. We’re going to bring that back. The first parliamentary fortnight starts Tuesday. Very, very soon … we will have done that so that providers and everybody in the industry can work on the basis of that model from 1 October. And I am confident that we will be able to do that,” she said.
Read more from Australian Ageing Agenda’s in-depth conversation with Minister Anika Wells in the forthcoming edition of Australian Ageing Agenda magazine (Jul-Aug 22), out mid-August.
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Minister Wells will try and deceive the country by telling it that aged care will receive a 10% funding boost from the October budget. This is technically correct but does not take into consideration the associated costs of the mandated care minutes which must be implemented by aged care providers by October 23. The modelling of the net impact of increased funding and increased wage cost shows that approximately 60% of aged care homes will be worse off under AN-ACC funding than they are today.
Why aren’t the government recognising the aged have as much of a right to choice regarding care setting, type and funding as NDIS. They speak of equity and divide by age. There needs to be comparison of both models to ensure this age based discrimination stops now. This is the Labor government’s chance to demonstrate the equity that they speak so freely of