Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 4:14:30 to 5:20:02
Officials discuss the inclusion of MSOs in wait time calculations and the legislative requirement to meet the three-month target, detailing the long-term plan to support additional places by 2035.
Topics: Health, Social services
Speakers: Senator The Hon Anne Ruston, Mr Greg Pugh, Senator Ellie Whiteaker, Ms Jasmine Snow, Mr Robert Day
Okay. Um so in um because it'd be it'd be interesting to see if there's a roadmap about how you think this many packages released, this is what your wait time is going to come down to. Um and obviously the wait lists. So in that target of getting to um a three-month average wait time by November 2027. Is that a way uh at the the three-month wait time for a full package? Or does that include MSOs?
That's to any funding, so we'll include MSOs.
Okay. So in effect it's not a three-month wait time because you've got another average ten weeks. So you imagine that ten week MSO time to come down. Because that three months sort of gets awfully close to looking like five and a half months if you whack the MSO on it, doesn't it?
I I think it will depend on demand for the program at that point in time.
Well, I think you probably should know what the demand for the program is going to be at that point in time. I mean, you know, anybody who didn't realise that we had an aging population and demand was going to increase and wasn't doing their job. So part of your job is to understand and predict what demand is going to be. So my question once again is I'm keen to understand what your roadmap is to actually get to three months by 20 November 2027. And I'm also keen for a little bit of transparency and honesty about the fact that that three-month wait time does not include MSOs, so people do not have their full package. So therefore, if you add the 10-week wait time, unless you're going to tell me that your estimation is that that wait time will be shorter by then. I'd like to know what the wait time will be if you include MSOs on the November 2027.
Yes, we can we can um provide that. Probably just to take us back a step.
Sorry, we're gonna wrap up in about 15 seconds to go to lunch. So if you can provide a very concise answer and then we'll come back.
Sure. So uh 2425, my EFO, we had the additional 4.3 billion dollars funding for support at home. Uh we had the commitment to release the additional 83,000 places in 2025-26. That was helping keep the track of the programme on track to achieve the average three-month wait time to sum funding by the uh 1st November 2027. To further supplement that, we've got the additional eighty the additional thirty-two thousand places that have been released in 2026-27. That brings the total number to 420,000 by the 30th of June 2027. And the program has always been designed so that it would uh support an additional 300,000 places by 2020, uh 2035. So broadly speaking, that is the plan to get us to that commitment of the three-month wait time um by the first of November 2027, which I I must uh also emphasise is not just a loose commitment, it's actually there in ninety-three fourteen of the rules. So we have um a legislative requirement to meet that time frame. So that's what we're getting to.
Okay, must be for is the evidence about how you're intending to get there, and so far, I mean I appreciate you taking it on notice that you've taken an awful lot on notice um of issues I would have thought you would have been able to answer given this is estimates.
Yes, are you gonna wrap no? We're gonna wrap up for lunch uh and we will recommence at 2 pm with this same outcome.
To related to assessment decisions.