Aged care spending came in $1.4 billion below budget even as more than 106,000 older Australians wait for ongoing Support at Home funding and thousands remain stuck in hospitals because appropriate care is unavailable.

Ageing Australia says the underspend exposes a stark gap between the funding allocated to aged care and the care reaching older Australians, with money left unspent despite significant and growing unmet demand.

Ageing Australia CEO Tom Symondson said the figures raised serious questions about why funding had not been directed to people waiting for care.

“We don’t have $1.4 billion less need for aged care. We have more than 106,000 older Australians waiting for ongoing Support at Home funding and thousands stuck in hospital because there is nowhere appropriate for them to go.

“Whatever the reason for the underspend, the result is both crystal clear and totally impossible to justify when so many older Australians are waiting for the care and support they desperately need.”

Ageing Australia estimates around $510 million could fund all three of its emergency residential aged care measures this financial year:

• lifting this year’s AN-ACC increase from 2.55 per cent to 5 per cent
• increasing the hotelling supplement by 3.5 per cent pending a review of the real funding need
• bringing forward the planned $5 increase to the accommodation supplement from March 2027 to October 2026.

That would still leave around $900 million, which Ageing Australia estimates could immediately take 30,000 older Australians off the Support at Home waiting list.

“The numbers make the choices pretty stark. The $1.4 billion underspend the Government has banked could fund all three emergency measures we’ve proposed to stabilise residential aged care as well as delivering services to 30,000 older Australians waiting for Support at Home.

“The Government says Australia needs to build around 10,000 aged care beds every year for the next two decades. Yet in the space of a month, more than 3,600 planned beds have been shelved or put at risk following a real terms funding cut.

“That’s almost the same number of older Australians currently stuck in hospital because there is nowhere appropriate for them to go.

“The Government cannot say we desperately need thousands of new beds and then make funding decisions that stop those beds from being built.”

Ageing Australia is calling on the Government to ensure future aged care underspends are reinvested into addressing unmet demand and building the capacity needed to care for Australia’s ageing population.

“This isn’t a story about there being less need for aged care than expected. The need is staring us in the face.

“Leaving $1.4 billion unspent isn’t a saving if the care it was intended to fund still needs to be delivered.

“The money was budgeted to meet the needs of older Australians. Those needs haven’t disappeared. People are still waiting, hospitals are still full and desperately needed residential aged care beds are now being shelved by the thousand.

“We know where the problems are and we know what it would cost to start fixing them. The money was already budgeted. It is sitting in the government’s bank account waiting to be spent. Every older person denied timely care deserves to know why.”

Media contact: Omeed Shahriari, Ageing Australia via 0410 789 928 (call only) or