Budget delivers trifecta
Older Australians have been granted a trio of cost‑of‑living measures in the recent Federal Budget, all of which were championed by National Seniors. The Policy team looks at what other benefits are available to you.
The 2024/25 Federal Budget has addressed the needs of older Australians with several key cost-of-living measures.
The Budget includes a trio of significant changes that benefit seniors—another energy bill rebate, an increase in Commonwealth Rent Assistance, and an extension of the freeze on deeming rates.
We welcomed these changes, which were part of our pre-budget recommendations.
This highlights the impact of our advocacy and the importance of your continued support.
Additionally, the Budget offers more benefits for seniors, including new commitments in areas such as tax, health, and aged care.
Further Budget initiatives
Funding for frontline Services Australia staff
There is $1.8 billion in the Budget for additional frontline staff for Services Australia, aimed at improving service standards and reducing claims backlogs. Hopefully this funding will be reflected in the time it takes to get claims processed and phone calls answered.
More flexibility for carers
The government plans to let carers be more flexible in how they spend their time. From 20 March 2025, the 25 hours per week participation limit will change to 100 hours over four weeks. This limit will also only apply to work, not study, volunteering, or travel as it currently captures.
Additional funding for veterans
The government has allocated funding for various measures continuing to help veterans. These include funding for the short-term viability of home care and community nursing programs for veterans, more funding to improve claims processing, and changes to simplify and standardise veterans’ compensation and rehabilitation.
Men’s sheds
In line with the National Men’s Health Strategy, $11.6 million has been provided over two years to support Men’s Sheds and national men’s health research and data collection initiatives.
Relief via energy bill
The government will provide a $300 cost-of-living rebate to all households. Similar to the $500 rebate in the previous budget, this will be directly applied to electricity bills.
However, unlike last year, this rebate will not be subject to means testing and will be available to all households.
This rebate will be in addition to any similar state-based programs. For example, Queensland recently announced a $1,000 energy rebate for households, a measure National Seniors advocated for in our Queensland budget submission.
Commonwealth Rent Assistance
In a move welcomed by National Seniors, the government will increase the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) by 10% from 20 September 2024.
This follows on from a 15% increase in the maximum rate in last year’s budget. For a single renter receiving the maximum rate, CRA will increase by $18.80 per fortnight, close to $500 over a year.
In our pre-budget submission, National Seniors recommended an increase in the CRA due to rising rents and the overall cost of living.
While we are pleased with the increase, we are disappointed that the indexation process has not been adjusted to align future CRA increases with rent changes rather than the overall CPI, as we had suggested.
Continued freeze on deeming rates
With the RBA having raised interest rates, pensioners subject to deeming will find some relief in the announcement of an ongoing freeze on social security deeming rates.
The Budget extends the freeze on deeming rates for an additional 12 months, maintaining them at their current levels until 30 June 2025.
This follows the initial two-year freeze set to end on 30 June 2024. The lower deeming rate is 0.25%, and 2.25% for the upper rate.
Given various predictions about future interest rate changes, National Seniors welcomed this degree of certainty for pensioners with deemed assets.
Cost of living
Treasurer Jim Chalmers stated, "From July 1, all 13.6 million taxpayers will receive a tax cut," which includes a significant portion of individuals aged 50 and above.
This means older workers will see a boost in their paychecks due to the tax cuts previously announced.
Under the updated tax cuts, the 19% tax rate will be reduced to 16%, and the 32.5% rate to 30%. While the 37% and 45% tax rates will remain unchanged, their thresholds will be cut.
On the topic of older workers, interestingly, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was quick to announce in his budget reply of Liberal’s recommitment to doubling the existing Work Bonus from $300 per fortnight to $600.
Health
The Budget includes a five-year freeze on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) co-payment for pensioners and Commonwealth Concession Card holders.
This will freeze the concessional co-payment amount at $7.70 until 31 December 2029.
The PBS general co-payment will be frozen between 1 January 2025 and Further budget initiatives 31 December 2025. This co-payment amount is currently $31.60.
These amounts would have otherwise been indexed by inflation. In the Budget, the government included increases in the income thresholds before paying the Medicare levy for lower-income earners.
For single seniors and pensioners, the threshold increases from $38,365 to $41,089. For eligible senior couples, it rises from $53,406 to $57,198. This change is intended to apply to the current tax year. The Medicare levy is a 2% tax on income.
The Budget includes $3.4 billion in funding for new and amended listings on the PBS and the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Many of these will be for treatments that affect older patients.
New and amended listings have been provided for the treatment of:
- Adults with COVID-19
- Untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma
- Chronic kidney disease • Relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis
- Advanced melanoma of the middle layer of the eye (uvea)
- Chronic heart failure
- Patients with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer
- Breast cancer
- Symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
The government has provided significant funding of $882.1 million to support earlier discharge from hospital for older Australians.
This includes $610.4 million for state and territory governments to address challenges associated with longer stay older patients who are unable to be safely discharged into the community, and ongoing funding for existing transition care programs and palliative care programs.
A package of initiatives will respond to the evaluation of Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention system.
This includes $588.5 million over eight years to establish a free national digital health service.
Aged care
The government has committed $2.2 billion over five years for ongoing aged care reforms from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
As part of this, it has signalled the new Aged Care Act will be operational from 1 July 2025, in line with the new consolidated Support at Home program.
This will likely include changes to funding, including changes to co-contributions, as recommended by the Aged Care Taskforce.
A significant investment of $1.2 billion over five years is being made to sustain and enhance the digital systems used within aged care to ensure they can support the introduction of the new Aged Care Act.
A further $174.5 million over two years will be made available to fund the ICT infrastructure for the new Support at Home Program and Single Assessment System, which will also begin on 1 July 2025.
An additional 24,100 Home Care Packages will be available in 2024–25 at $531.4 million.
This is more than double the amount that was introduced last year which led to a lengthening of the home care wait list. We hope this higher amount will reduce wait list times.
Additional funds of $110.9 million over four years have been provided to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to increase its regulatory capability and to implement a new aged care regulatory framework from 1 July 2025.
Funding of $65.6 million over four years is being provided to attract and retain aged care workers, collect reliable data, and improve the outcomes for people receiving aged care services through existing aged care workforce programs.
Disappointingly, the government has not implemented changes to Age Pension Income Test rules to reward older care sector workers who remain in the workforce as National Seniors continues to recommend.
The My Aged Care Contact Centre will receive $37 million over two years to help reduce wait times due to increased demand and service complexity.
Ongoing funding of $30.4 million over three years has been given to continue the Specialist Dementia Care Program.
The Australian Dementia Network will receive funding to continue developments in biomarkers and disease modifying therapies for dementia.
The Palliative Aged Care Outcomes Program will be extended for two years and the Program of Experience in the Palliative Approach program will receive $10.8 million to continue to upskill the aged care and primary care workforce to further embed palliative care capacity.
The Home Care Workforce Support Program will receive additional funding for three years growth of the care and support workforce in thin markets, such as in regional and remote areas.
Providers operating in thin markets will also receive further support—$7.8 million over two years to extend funding as they transition their business operations to accommodate the new Australian National Aged Care Classification funding model.
This article is featured in National Seniors Australia’s quarterly member magazine, Our Generation.
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