Blown-out waitlists for support at home have been the focus of fiery exchanges in federal parliament for a second day, with the opposition quizzing Aged Care Minister Sam Rae about the decision to delay landmark reforms by four months.
The government had planned to open an extra 83,000 home care positions from July, but the overhaul has been pushed back to November.
Mr Rae defended the decision to delay the reforms, saying it was "difficult" but necessary.
The minister admitted 4,812 Australians died in the last financial year while waiting for the level of care for which they've been assessed.
That figure includes people who were waiting to get into home care, and those who were already in home care but needed a higher level of service.
The opposition, Greens and some independent senators are pushing for the number of home care places to be expanded immediately.
"Literally thousands of people have written to me telling me their stories of waiting," opposition aged care spokeswoman Anne Ruston said on Tuesday.
"The department is ready, the sector is ready, but it is only the government who is choosing not to release the support that so many older Australians desperately need."
The coalition has put forward an amendment which would force the government to release an extra 40,000 packages by the end of 2025, and another 43,000 by mid-2026.
The proposal is likely to get backing from the Greens and some crossbench Senators. If it passes, it would be Labor's first defeat on the floor of parliament since the election.
The government has been negotiating across the political aisle in the hopes of reaching a compromise, but the Greens will attempt to force a vote on the issue on Wednesday morning.
The minor party's older people spokesperson Penny Allman-Payne described the current delays as "unconscionable".
"Under this system you have to wait for someone else to die, or move into residential aged care, before you can get support at home," she said.
Labor insists it pushed back the release of more home care packages because providers needed extra time to prepare, but the sector's peak body is challenging that account.
"Providers have told us time and again that they have the capacity to care for many more older people, but this simply isn't possible without more home-care packages," the organisation's chief executive Tom Symondson said.
Mr Symondson is backing the push to urgently release more home care packages, and believes 20,000 should be rolled out before the start of November.
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