Shadow Minister for Aged Care Anne Ruston has labelled Minister for Aged Care and Sport, Anika Wells, a "failure" for not properly informing the sector about delays to the rollout of the new Aged Care Act.
Senator Ruston is calling on Minister Wells to "urgently" tell aged care providers about when the full Exposure Draft of the new Act will be released and when the reforms will be implemented.
"The Minister must urgently explain to the sector, consumers, and families what Labor party’s intentions are regarding the future of aged care and when we will actually see the full exposure draft of the new Act," she said in a statement.
This morning, Minister Wells released a statement saying the Government will update the commencement date of the new Aged Care Act "before the bill is introduced to the Parliament" in response to Nine News revealing overnight that leaked documents indicated implementation of the new Act may be delayed until January or July 2025.
"Astonishingly, at the eleventh hour, the Minister for Aged Care has announced through a media request that she will not deliver the new Aged Care Act by the first of July," Senator Ruston said.
"It is [a] failure of the Minister to be having this conversation in the media, instead of showing respect to the sector, older Australians, and the broader community by telling them first of the Government’s plans to delay the Aged Care Act.
"Management of this significant piece of legislation has been a failure from the start.
"Firstly, the Government chose to consult on the 347-page exposure draft over the December and January period – meaning hard working aged care providers had their Christmas holidays cut short.
"Then, the Government paid more than $800,000 to outsource their consultation to consultants," said Senator Ruston, referring to a tender the Government put out in late December 2023, which resulted in them paying KPMG to consult on 'facilitated consultations and engagement activities for the new Aged Care Act' at a cost of around $816,000.
"And now, they have announced a further delay on the draft Act, yet we don’t know how long for?," Senator Ruston said.
"It is clear that more time is required, but it is astonishing that the Minister has taken this long to inform the sector of her failure to meet her deadline."
