The Morrison Government's Budget 2019-20 appears to be fooling very few

By 26 August 2018 North Coast Voices was posting this……

There are now 108,000 older Australians on the waiting list for Home Care Packages.

On this list are individuals who have:

* not yet been approved for home care;

* been previously assessed and approved, but who have not yet been assigned a home care package; or

* are receiving care at an interim level awaiting assignment of a home care package at their approved level.

Waiting time is calculated from the date of a home care package approval and this is not a an ideal situation, given package approval times range from est. 27 to 98 days and the time taken to approve high level home care packages is now [more] than twelve months - with actual delivery dates occurring at least 12 months later on average….

By June 2017 New South Wales had the largest number of persons on the home care waiting list at 30,685.

Given the high number of residents over 60 years of age in regional areas like the Northern Rivers, this waiting list gives pause for thought.

This was the Morrison Government announcement of 17 December 2018 reported online…….

Community Care Review magazine, 17 December 2018:

The federal government has announced $553 million in aged care spending including the release of 10,000 home care packages and increased residential supplements for the homeless and people in regional areas.

The splash-out is a centerpiece of the federal government’s Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which forecasts a return to budget surplus and a raft of new aged care spending initiatives.

The new high-care home care packages will be available within weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. Funding will be split across 5,000 level 3 and 5,000 level 4 care packages, providing up to $50,000 per person in services each year.

This is the Morrison Government pretending that the 10,000 aged care packages it announced last year are a new round of age care packages in Budget 2019-20……

Budget Papers 2019-20:

To support older Australians who choose to remain in their own homes for longer, the Government is providing $282.4 million for 10,000 home care packages….

However, not everyone was fooled……

The Conversation, 2 April 2019:

In aged care, the government will fund 10,000 home care packages, which have been previously announced, at a cost of $282 million over five years, and will allocate $84 million for carer respite. But long wait times for home care packages remain.