Federal Budget aged care measures
Some new money, old announcements and the same big gaps
The Federal Budget has added more aged care funding, although not all of it is new. There is some useful money in the package. But many of the difficult questions remain.
The Federal Budget has added more aged care funding, although not all of it is new. Several of the headline measures had already been announced or signalled before Budget night. There is some very useful funding in the package, particularly around Support at Home, residential care capital spending and system infrastructure. But many of the difficult questions remain.
Support at Home gets help where it was most exposed
The main home care measure is $1.4 billion over four years for affordability and access with the most important change being the already announced decision to fully fund personal care under Support at Home. Showering, dressing and continence support will no longer attract client co-contributions, which is a sensible correction to a policy setting that was always going to be difficult to explain and even harder to implement.
There is also money to bring forward Support at Home places, improve assessments, simplify hardship arrangements and adjust the end-of-life pathway. Again, some of this had already been announced, so the Budget confirms the funding more than it reveals a new direction. What providers still need is the operational detail.
The Portfolio Budget Statements point to an additional 40,000 packages in 2026–27, taking the total to 420,000. The obvious questions remain: when will those places be released, at what levels, and how quickly will people actually receive services? That is what matters on the ground.
End-of-life funding gets a practical fix
The Budget also extends funding for people who outlive the original 12-16 week end-of-life pathway. This fixes a poor design feature which we have complained about since it was announced. People receiving end-of-life support at home should not risk running out of funding simply because they live longer than expected.
That change should have been there from the start, but at least it is now being addressed.
CHSP remains the unanswered question
The Budget says very little about CHSP. There is no growth funding, no roadmap and no clear statement about what happens beyond the current arrangements.
That silence is becoming harder to defend. CHSP is still the biggest entry-level support program in aged care. It keeps people connected, supported and out of higher-cost care for longer. It is exactly the sort of preventative platform governments say they want, yet it remains stuck in policy limbo.
The Government keeps talking about ageing at home while leaving the main program that helps people do that without a clear long-term future. That is the contradiction providers will notice.
Residential care gets more serious capital support
The residential care measures are more concrete. The Government has committed more than $600 million over four years, with a further $3 billion beyond 2030, in response to the Accommodation Pricing Review and the need for new bed supply.
The important shift is capital support. Providers cannot build or redevelop homes at the scale required without some form of capital assistance, so daily capital subsidies for newly built and expanded homes are a practical move.
More money, but not enough clarity
There is also funding for dementia programs, ICT systems, cyber security, regulation and workforce initiatives. Some of that is necessary because major reform cannot run on systems that are not working and with underfunded administration.
But the pattern is clear. More money is being spent keeping the reform machinery running.
The Budget improves parts of the aged care reform program, but it does not settle the bigger issues. Support at Home still needs clearer implementation detail. CHSP still needs a future. Workforce pressures remain. Providers are still being asked to prepare for reforms while too many practical settings are unresolved.
More money helps, but certainty is still required.
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