Government agrees to release 20,000 Home Care Packages before 1 November
Aged Care funding news today – 03 September 2025
Today the government passed an amendment to aged care legislation to bring forward the release of home care package funding before the legislation is due to take effect on 1 November. The Coalition, Greens and crossbench have been pushing for more home care packages to be immediately released, and Labor recorded objection to the motion by independent David Pocock.
The Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler announced soon after the Senate vote that 20,000 home care packages would be released before the start date of the new aged care act, and this is “an agreed position” between Labor and the Liberals. He warned there would be additional cost in bringing the rollout forward, but this cleared the way for the government’s legislation to get through the Senate this week.
This means 20,000 additional home care packages will be released between now and 1 November, between November and 31 December there will be another 20,000 packages released, and the remaining 43,000 packages will be released until 30 June 2026.
According to the latest figures, there are 121,000 people waiting to be assessed, and nearly 109,000 waiting for packages.
David Pocock says: “This is a huge win for community advocacy and will make a huge difference to older Australians but there is still so much more to do.”
If you are one of those on the waitlist, please get in touch with our Aged Care Support Specialists, who can check on the progress of your application and advise you on the next steps.