Government brings forward 20,000 aged care home packages amid ongoing waitlist crisis in Australia

The number of older Australians waiting for aged care remains too high, the federal minister says, after a backdown saw thousands of packages brought forward.

The federal government has brought forward the roll out of 20,000 home care packages following political pressure from the coalition and the crossbench.

While the places were going to start from November, they will now be rolled out between September and October.

Aged Care Minister Sam Rae denied the original delay was due to pressures on the budget, but said too many Australians were waiting for assistance.

“I don’t want to see people sitting on the national priority system without aged care,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

“The point is the number is too high, from my perspective. It’s why this reform program is so important.”

Aged care reforms were due to be rolled out from July, but were delayed until November after concern from the sector it would not be able to provide them in time.

However, Mr Rae said he was confident the earlier roll out of the 20,000 home places would be able to met.

“They’ve now told us, particularly over the last week, that they believe they can rise to the challenge of meeting an additional demand,” he said.

“We struck bipartisan agreement with the opposition (on the earlier roll out) and that was the announcement that we made.”

As part of the home care package timeline, the remaining 43,000 places will be rolled out in the first half of 2026.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said aged care reform would help to take pressure off the state’s hospitals.

“We’ve got a lot of aged care patients in our hospitals that could be discharged this afternoon, but there’s nowhere for them to go,” he told Sky News.