Aged care has been an issue that both sides of politics have sought to use against the other in attempting to convince the voting public that under them the evident problems in underfunding of aged care will be rapidly banished if they were to be elected. A little like Donald Trump’s promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours these commitments remain unfulfilled. The question that this raises is WHY?

Payment now of hundreds of millions of dollars from our taxes to the US to secure submarines is paid for in the reduction of services to Australians that are necessary in their daily lives. The US promise is that they might, just might, be delivered in the next decade or so, but no guarantees mind you. These are to protect us from what we are told by international relations experts like prof Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard is just the vanishingly small possibility of China completely changing its 40 year long policy of promoting peaceful co-existence around the world to one of aggression and invasion of sundry countries (most of which they are the major trading partner of). No even remotely compelling or even plausible reason has been provided for them doing so.

In those circumstances it seems odd in the extreme that the government should favour essentially handing over such vast sums of the dollars of taxpayers money in exchange for unlikely to be met promises. Those taxpayers have clearly indicated they would overwhelmingly prefer that their money be spent in providing the services promised by government to the citizens but not delivered.

The Commonwealth’s newly enacted Aged Care Act 2024 makes promises that its other financial dealings have rendered them unwilling or unable to fulfil. The act promises a transformative shift: centred on a Statement of Rights that pledges to place older Australians firmly at the system’s heart. These include rights to autonomy, respect, informed choice, privacy, cultural safety, and a voice without fear—appearing, on the surface, as a bold step forward.

This elevation of rights is tied to expanded powers for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, tasked with enforcing them. Yet beneath these pledges is a growing dissonance—the system proclaims with one hand, while the lived reality tells a different story.

Recent data reveals a grim truth: more than 200,000 older Australians are currently trapped in a limbo of waiting for aged care, according to evidence before a Senate committee—over 120,000 awaiting initial assessment, and nearly 90,000 approved but still not receiving care. In the past financial year alone, nearly 5,000 older Australians tragically died while waiting for a Home Care Package—care they had already been deemed eligible for. How can such an alarming loss of life not be dominating front-page headlines as a national emergency? Especially in the wake of the Aged Care Royal Commission—whose 2021 final report warned that delayed access to in-home support “raises real safety risks,” accelerates hospital admissions, forces premature entry into residential care, and can even result in death —this situation represents a catastrophic failure of accountability and reform implementation.

Claims of progress are further eroded by a backlog so severe that newly assessed individuals are being forced to wait until someone else dies or moves into residential care before support becomes available.

Perhaps the most telling omission in the Statement of Rights is the absence of the word timely. That one missing word is not a drafting slip—it is a calculated shield.

Timely assessments and services are not bureaucratic niceties. They are the difference between preserving an older person’s independence and quality of life—and forcing them into hospital or aged care prematurely. If timely were recognized as a right, every life lost on the waitlist would be a failure of law, not just policy.

Without timeliness, the right to a “fair and accurate assessment” becomes paperwork—not protection. And how can it possibly be considered safe to make frail older Australians wait 18 months, even two years, for the services they have already been assessed as needing? The government has enshrined a right to safe care in its new Act, yet ignores the fact that safety is as much about timeliness as it is about quality. Delayed care is unsafe care, and no statement of rights can disguise that.

Where Are the Government’s Responsibilities?

What is most striking is that the Statement of Rights has been designed with providers and services in mind—ensuring that they uphold respect, autonomy, and safety. But what about government itself? Where is the obligation on the Department to fund and deliver services in a way that makes those rights real?

The government holds providers to a code of accountability, while excusing its own failures to fund and deliver care in a timely fashion. Rights without reciprocal government responsibility risk becoming hollow promises.

The government are big on promoting a rights-based aged care system—even as it denies access to those most in need. It is akin to building a shining temple of dignity, then keeping its doors locked for those who need it most.

Bridging the Gap — What Must Happen

1. Immediate release of care packages: Promised reform must not await November—it must begin now.
2. Government accountability: Rights must bind not just providers, but the government itself. Waiting lists are not a provider failure; they are a policy and funding failure.
3. Transparent reporting: The government must own these failures and regularly report progress on clearing backlogs and reducing wait times.

The Aged Care Act 2024 is a milestone of principle—but until services can be accessed in a timely fashion, and until government accepts responsibility for making them real, it rings hollow. The gulf between promise and lived reality risks betraying the very people it is meant to protect. A government that preaches safety while forcing people to wait two years for care is not upholding rights—it is practicing hypocrisy.