Health Minister Mark Butler and Aged Care Minister Sam Rae are up in the Blue Room:

Minister Rae:

Growth and demand for Aged Care Services is growing extraordinarily fast in the home care space. We’ve gone from about 155,000 people accessing home care services through the Home Care Packages program in 2020 to well over 300,000 people now just announcing the profile by which will introduce an additional 83,000 packages, a growth component to that, just over the next 12 months or so.

Minister Butler:

We have to get this legislation through the parliament this week. If we don’t, there is simply no way we can introduce the new aged care system on the first of November.

This demand trajectory is steep, and governments for years, not the next. few years, but for many years ahead are going to have to manage what is going to be for some time, a big increase in demand.