ANIKA WELLS MP
MINISTER FOR AGED CARE
MINISTER FOR SPORT

TRANSCRIPT - 4BC BREAKFAST: WHAT AUSTRALIA WANTS SEGMENT - 10 APRIL 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4BC BREAKFAST: WHAT AUSTRALIA WANTS SEGMENT
THURSDAY, 10 APRIL 2025

SUBJECTS: Aged Care Act Reforms; Home Care; Brisbane 2032 Olympics and Paralympics.

PETER FEGAN, HOST: Well, joining me in the studio is the Minister for Aged Care and Sport, Anika Wells. Minister very good morning to you.

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SPORT: Always a pleasure, Feegs. How are you?

FEGAN: I'm very well. You're campaigning for the seat of Lilley. Look, you're untouchable. You're going to win, Lilley, we know that. I mean, you are. I've got to say, in all honesty, in all the years I've been covering politics, I've never seen a minister quite that campaigns quite like you. You're a campaign machine. You've been out on the streets probably six weeks before the five-and-a-half-week campaign.

WELLS: Well, we doorknock all three years of a parliamentary term so that we have a very good sense when it comes to an election, what people are asking us to do; What Australians want, if you will.

FEGAN: Are the libs bothering-

WELLS: -in Lilley?

FEGAN: Have they got a candidate?

WELLS: They do.

FEGAN: And do they live in Lilley?

WELLS: All signs point to yes, but that's what we said- [laughs]

FEGAN: They didn't last time [laughs]

WELLS: -that's what we said this time last term. And we've got our ballot draw tomorrow, so we'll meet all the colourful cast of characters that will contest the seat of Lilley.

FEGAN: Okay? Good luck to them, cause they're not going to get anywhere near you, unfortunately for them, I think they have an uphill battle . We've got plenty of questions to ask you this morning. I'm actually going to start with a friend of mine from Goondiwindi that sent a message. I know that this person, they want to remain anonymous, but they are in aged care, and it says, “what's the plan to support aged care residents and workers, given the increasing demand on the ageing population?”

WELLS: Well, that's that almost feels like a dixer in that, if your listeners aren't aware and you're forgiven for not tuning into Question Time each and every day, we have delivered the biggest aged care reforms, and those are structural reforms, an entire New Aged Care Act, the biggest aged care reforms in 30 years. The key recommendation out of that Royal Commission into Aged Care, which was the draft report, was titled neglect, was for a whole new Act that's based around people. The old Act that exists up to 1 July, it's basically based around how do government departments provide money to providers to do different services for people. The new Act is based around the rights of the person and setting our whole system up for the future. Some of those reforms that have come in already look like 4.8 million minutes of care for residents of aged care like your friend every single day. And that is already in place. That's been in place for a couple of years.

FEGAN: Wayne from Brendale is on the line. Wayne, very good morning to you.

WAYNE, CALLER: Good morning, Peter and Minister. Anika, my mother four years ago was put into a home up at Kallangur and it was $325,000, the stump up fee to get in there. My mother-in-law just two days ago, has been put into another place because she's incapacitated now. And she, the first place we got a quote for it was $750,000, and we eventually found a place for $540,000. And I just want to know why it has gone up so much over the last three years to get old people into homes. And presently at the Prince Charles Hospital, there's 190 old people in hospital beds waiting to get into aged care homes. So what are you going to do about all this difference of, like price, and what's happening with the placement of these people in our lives.

WELLS: G'day, Wayne. Thank you for your question. I think there'll be a number of different elements to why you've had those two different experiences a few years apart. The financial circumstances of the person who's entering aged care will dictate how much they are asked to pay, and there's also, what it sounds like from what you've been asked to pay for your mother-in-law most recently, be it 500 or 750k, is what's called a RAD. There are far too many acronyms in aged care, so I won't slow everybody down with them, but what our system does, or what our system will do, our new system is give you the option of paying a one off deposit, like you appear to be being asked to do, or you can pay a daily payment, more like paying rent for your food and your board in the same way that you have to find money to pay for your food and your board.

FEGAN: And is that paid weekly?

WELLS: DAP is for daily, but it's calculated again according to your circumstances. We have in place, what I would say, without getting into the ins and outs of your individual circumstances, we have in place a strong safety net so that if you cannot afford to pay that, taxpayers will still cover the cost of your care for you. There is still a very strong safety net that exists. What we are asking people to do, who can afford to co-contribute to the cost of their care is to do that. But also the price of the room probably dictates a little bit what that room looks like, because some of those rooms that are still around the place are dual share, no ensuite, no balcony, you know, cinderblock, 1950s rooms, and some of these rooms people are having now are level 12, overlooking the Brisbane River, en-suite, very fancy digs. The price for that room and board is going to look a bit higher, and that's your choice; it should be your choice. I would agree with you, Wayne, that at the moment we are busting at the seams and there aren't enough beds. That goes to your point about the Prince Charles and longer stay older patients, and that's because people in my job haven't done the work for, you know, ten years when we knew this population boom was coming. They didn't do the work. We've now had to hustle probably 5 to 10 years’ worth of reform into two years’ worth of reform. We have done that, and we hope that come 1 July you will see the results.

FEGAN: Good on you, Wayne. Thanks for your question. Let's do Derry in Kalinga, just before we head off to the break and the Minister will say onto the other side of the break as well and answer more of your questions. Derry, good morning to you.

DERRY, CALLER: Good morning, Peter. Minister, I've been helping a lady friend for quite some time since her husband died, and she needed an aged care package. She's 82 and a very small little old lady, and she got an aged care package was given to her. She was given the two numbers, one for domestic help and one for yard work, and all she has ever asked for the last three years is someone to mow the lawn, and not one provider in Queensland can give her someone to mow the lawn.

FEGAN: This is interesting. I didn't know that there were services that did it.

WELLS: Yeah. Sorry, have I cut you off-

FEGAN: Have you got. No, you’re right, Derry, the Minister will respond-

DERRY, CALLER: I do have bit more. Yeah, we were told she needs a home care package, not an aged care package, so I got on to aged care again, and they said yes, ring this number and I'll send someone out to interview her. The lady came out last week and she sat here and asked all the questions. She said, “oh, yes, you certainly qualify for an aged care package”. I said, hang on a second, she's got an aged care package and showed her the numbers. She said, “well, we've got to go through this all again”. She said, “she probably needs a home care package. I'll put a recommendation in for that, because you're really not going to get anything out of the aged care package”. So why do we have this aged care package Minister?

WELLS: Thank you for your question and thank you very much for helping your friend. I would say the aged care system that has been neglected for so long relies upon good Australians looking after their neighbours, and that shouldn't be the case. We should be able to have a system that everybody can be looked after within, but thank you for doing that. In the interim, you know how I warned you there's too many acronyms in aged care. What I suspect has happened here is CHSP, which is the home support program which does things like community taxi vouchers, mowing, those kind of interim measures where you're really all right, but you just need a bit of help versus an aged care package, which under our new reforms, will go up to a $78,000 cap and depends on how much care you need, whether you need clinical care and a nurse to come and dress your wound at home. It sounds like your friend has been given access to home support for a mower, and because the services are so thin on the ground and because so many people want that hasn't been able to secure it, but what you're now being told is that, she has been assessed and is clinically, um, assessed as, uh, eligible for an aged care package, which is a far more comprehensive package of services, which is designed to allow you to stay at home for as long as possible.

FEGAN: And I think what we'll do, we'll get, and thanks for your call Derry, we've got your team here, Chris and the amazing team here today. We might get your details and maybe follow that up, Minister-

WELLS: Of course.

FEGAN: -and figure out why what's going on in that particular case. We'll take a break. Do you mind sticking around for a few more questions? It's sixteen and a half after seven. It is ‘What Australia Wants’ your unique opportunity to ask the politicians, the leaders of our country, the questions that you want answered. Anika Wells is our guest today and we'll do it again after the break.

[AD BREAK]

FEGAN: My guest this morning is the Aged Care Minister and the Sports Minister here in Queensland, and for, I should say Federal Aged Care Minister is what I'm trying to say, Anika Wells is in the studio with me. She's taking your questions this morning. It's all part of ‘What Australia Wants’, and I have another question here, Minister. This is pertaining to the Olympic Games. The question said, there's no name to it, unfortunately, but the question is to the Minister, “do you actually think that the overwhelming amount of Australians wanted the Olympic Games?”

WELLS: I think the overwhelming amount of Australians will want the Olympic and Paralympic Games when it comes to Brisbane 2032, because everybody loved the Melbourne 1956 Games, everybody loved the Sydney 2000 Games, and what I tell myself when we sort of are in the day to day cut and thrust of putting that together. No one ever likes seeing how the sausage is made is that people complained about the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games right up until the opening ceremony, and then it was magic and people still tell me wanted to stop and tell me where they were during those four weeks back in 2000. It is something that gives all of us a North Star to work towards. Something I hear a lot is that politicians only care about the 24-hour media cycle, rather than thinking big picture about the big, proper challenges that our country needs to face. Having a deadline of 2032 actually gives us that opportunity. And I've redrafted our whole national sport policy, um, to be a strategy, working methodically backwards from 2032, that's called Sport Horizon. And I actually think that gives you better policy because you actually are forced to think about 17 years ahead rather than just the next election.

FEGAN: I've got to say, before we get to Janice, who wants to ask a question from Kingaroy, I've got to say, and without bias, and this is my honest beliefs here. David Crisafulli saved the Olympic Games, and I think that he was set up for failure. I think that Annastacia Palaszczuk, regardless of what you think of her, was selfish in the way that she approached the Olympic Games. I think that she got caught up in her own agenda. And I think I've got I think Adrian Schrinner and I think David Crisafulli did a tremendous job working with the Federal Government as well to save those games. I don't think anyone can deny it.

WELLS: I'm glad that you think that things are in better stead now. We just had the OCOG on Friday up at the Sunshine Coast because they're one of our key co-host cities. I would say that what you see on the 6 o’clock news between sort of key political figures, the bombastic politics of it, doesn't represent all of the diligent work of Australians, particularly Queenslanders, who are earnestly trying to get on with this work to make sure that we all have a brilliant time in 2032.

FEGAN: Where does David Crisafulli rate e for you as a Premier

WELLS: Below Peter Beattie- [laughs]

FEGAN: [laughs] -have to say that, but no, I think do you think he's doing a good job?

WELLS: I think that the reception to their plan has been a really warm and the OCOG certainly is grateful that people seem to have that groundswell of enthusiasm back, because our task is to build the social capital for The Games, for everyone to feel like they have a part of it and that they're going to get something out of it, because there's so much that, like I said, it's a North Star. For me as the Federal Sport Minister, the average age of an Olympian is 23, which means that the people that are going to be our Olympians in 2032 are at high school now, which means that our federal sport programs that give opportunities to kids, particularly in areas in our regions or kids that are on the margins, that's what's important now, and that's what I get to have carriage of.

FEGAN: Janice is in Kingaroy. She's got a question for you. Janice. Meet the Minister, Minister this is Janice.

JANICE, CALLER: Hi. Good morning. I'm a carer and my husband's on a disability now. We don't have any savings. We don't have any superannuation or anything. How do people like us go about getting into a retirement village? When we get to the point that we can't look after ourselves?

FEGAN: It's a good question.

WELLS: Janice, the like I mentioned a little bit earlier in our segment, we have a very strong safety net and the changes that we've made in the new Act, which is coming in on 1 July, is still designed around the fact that we will always, we being Australian taxpayers, we will always cover the cost of your clinical care. You will never have to worry that you won’t get your wound dressed or you won’t get the clinical care that you need whether it’s in your home or in a residential aged care facility, because of your financial situation. Australian taxpayers will always cover the cost of that. The changes that we're making that start on 1 July, and the new Act that we're asking people who can afford to contribute a little bit more to the cost of their care to do so, but the scale of that still looks very different. For example, for every dollar you're being asked to contribute in residential aged care, the Australian taxpayer is still contributing $12 to your care, so you shouldn't worry. Those things are still part and parcel of having your Medicare card and being part of our great Australian health system-

FEGAN: What about placement? What about actual placement?

WELLS: The placement of beds like we said earlier, and let's not gild the lily here, we are short of beds. There are people streaming into our aged care system. By 1 July, when we add our record number of new home care packages, we're adding 107,000 to the system, the biggest number ever, that will mean we have the most ever in our system at once of 300,000 people. And that speaks to the number of people who need more support as they age.

FEGAN: But this election, more than others, more than any election, is so important, particularly looking after our older people, because there are a lot of older people in Australia. This is the issue, like we need to simplify this for them.

WELLS: Yes, and Feegs and I were just saying in the break, some of the theme of these questions is that the current aged care system is just impenetrable. It's so hard to navigate and it shouldn't be like that. It should be easy because often you're coming into the aged care system at your worst moment. You've had a fall, you're in hospital, or your daughter or your neighbour's had to step in and help you. We need the system to be clearer, easier to navigate, fairer. I truly believe it is all those things because of landmark bipartisanship and the biggest reforms in 30 years that come in 1 July.

FEGAN: Good on you, Janice. Thank you for your question. Minister, we're almost out of time. Thanks for jumping in the studio. I'm just going to ask a personal question before I let you go. Can we get some more money for the Broncos? I don't think they really need it, but can we just, can we build another something for them?

WELLS: You know, I struggle-

FEGAN: Battling over there at Red Hill.

WELLS: -I thought about doing this entire interview in my Broncos tracksuit. But I thought maybe with 23 days to go, I needed to keep it a touch more professional, but you know, I'll always fight for the Broncos.

FEGAN: Is it our year? I think it is.

WELLS: Broncos vs Rabbitohs Grand Final, please. From my lips to God's ears.

FEGAN: Go, Broncos-Rabbitohs! Good on you, Minister. How many days left?

WELLS: 23.

FEGAN: Not that you're counting. Thank you for your time today. Good luck during the campaign and we'll chat to you on election night, no doubt, or if not before.

WELLS: Thanks so much and thanks to all your listeners for jumping in.

ENDS