Aged care a rewarding challenge, Minister Sam Rae tells AAA

Taking on the aged care portfolio has been a “steep learning” curve, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors Sam Rae tells Australian Ageing Agenda, but a rewarding one.

While challenging, it is an exciting time to be in the aged care sector, he said. Mr Rae pointed to his senior minister Mark Butler as a key mentor throughout the “difficult but necessary and important” decisions he has had to make as minister so far – which has included delaying the implementation of the new Aged Care Act from 1 July to 1 November.

Home care wait times have been a key topic since it was revealed during the Senate Inquiry into delaying the new Support at Home program with the new Act that the effective total number of people waiting for home care is over 200,000.

Mr Rae told AAA that during the July to September period, comprehensive assessment times are down to 43 days from 51 noted in the previous quarter, which he attributes somewhat to “significant work in the assessment space,” including the development of a single assessment system.  

“We’re seeing consistently our efforts to reform the assessment processes and streamline the assessment processes, resulting in shorter wait times for older people across Australia,” he said.

“The single assessment system’s continuing to mature, which will in and of itself result in times continuing to come down. The other part is that it’s designed to operate within a broader ecosystem that comes into effect from 1 November,” he continued.

“It is really designed to operate in tandem with the new Aged Care Act and the Support at Home arrangements. So all of those co-design pieces put together will result in a continuing reduction of wait times and ultimately better outcomes for older people and getting them the care that they need as quickly as possible.”

‘Sensible approach’ will be taken during transition period

Service agreements under the new Support at Home model have similarly been a major concern for the sector, and Mr Rae said that while the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will “always prioritise in absolute terms the safety of older people,” the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will act in a reasonable way.

He left commentary on what exactly the ramifications of unsigned service agreements would look like to the commission but said he believed there had been a “cultural shift accompanied by a structural shift” ensuring the sector is outcome focused.

The commission’s interventions will be about supporting the sector to meet its obligations, not a punitive approach in cases such as administrative matters that can be addressed without posing a risk to the safety of older people, Mr Rae added.

Workforce recruitment, retention

The aged care workforce is under immense pressure, and Mr Rae agreed that migration pathways are a key part of building a stronger workforce. But, he also highlighted the award wage increases as key, saying he thinks it is one of the most important things the government has done since its election in 2022.

“We have these extraordinary people, highly skilled, highly qualified people who are providing care, whether they be nurses or personal care workers, and we know that retaining the people that we’ve got and attracting people of equal calibre – especially when with an aging population, we need more and more of those people all the time – without having adequate remuneration arrangements in place is just a folly,” he said.

“So those changes to ensure that these people are paid properly have been critically important.”

At the same time, Mr Rae acknowledged that migration plays an important role and that it is important Australia continues to attract migrant workers into the care sector, but with the appropriate support for career progression and skills expansion.

“So it’s about pay, it’s about building careers and professionalising the sector, and migration… plays a critical role in ensuring that we are bringing in people that have an existing skills base or have the disposition to be great carers and be contributors in our care economy,” he said.

Building an investable and equitable sector

At last week’s Ageing Australia National Conference 2025, Minister Rae announced a residential aged care accommodation pricing review for supported residents.

Elaborating further on the reasoning behind the review, Mr Rae told AAA it is essential to establishing not just an investable sector, but an equitable sector too.

“I say this pretty regularly, we want every older Australian to be able to access safe, dignified and high-quality aged care,” he said.

“The accommodation pricing review is a key component of making sure that we can continue to deliver an equitable aged care system.”

Nigel Ray and Associate Professor Nicole Sutton have been appointed as independent reviewers and will work closely with consumers, participants, residents, older people and their families to provide advice to the government on appropriate accommodation pricing arrangements.

Reflecting on his time as Minister since being appointed in May, Mr Rae said he has been “well-served” by people across the sector, particularly older people receiving care or interacting with the aged care system.

“It’s one of the most rewarding parts of my job. I love particularly spending time with older people who really are both very generous and very frank in their advice, which is so helpful,” he told AAA.

On a personal level, he shared that the additional responsibilities of the aged care portfolio have seen him spending less time with his family but emphasised he deems it an important trade-off, because it allows him to invest in understanding the needs of older people across the country as the reform process continues.

“I like to travel to as many places as I can, understand what the diversity of needs are. That will lead to hopefully me playing a more constructive role with a more holistic understanding of what we need to achieve as we go through this very ambitious reform process,” he said.

“I love this role and I feel very privileged to get to serve in this position – and it is a challenging role. It’s an exciting time to be in the space with so much reform going on, and frankly, to have the support of the Prime Minister and the government as we go through these once-in-a-generation reforms is, of course, very, very rewarding, but also, I feel the weight of that responsibility,” Mr Rae said.

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