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Tension is rising in Western Australia’s Shire of Wagin as ratepayers continue to subsidise Commonwealth Home Support Program services that are operating at a loss.
Appearing at Thursday’s Perth Senate inquiry hearing into Support at Home, Shire of Wagin acting president and elected member Bryan Kilpatrick said ratepayers have directly subsidised CHSP delivery “to the tune of $200,000” over the last three years.
The shire’s entire rate base is just over $3 million.
Mr Kilpatrick welcomed the government’s announcement that CHSP will be retained as a standalone program, but he warned that without reform, two different and competing markets will emerge.
“CHSP in its current form is not sustainable for providers who must find ways to offset their losses delivering CHSP,” said Mr Kilpatrick – who appeared alongside Shire of Wagin chief executive officer Dr Kenneth Parker.
“Minister Butler, in his press release announcing the continuation of CHSP, said that the council can no longer use the excuse of uncertainty to withdraw from CHSP,” said Mr Kilpatrick, referring to Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing Mark Butler.
“Having proudly delivered this challenging service on the ground on behalf of the commonwealth for 40 years, uncertainty is not the reason why the shire is being asked by some in our community why the shire should continue to deliver home care,” he said.
“It is an unsustainable funding environment.”
Shire of Wagin is the largest CHSP provider in the area, and the profitability of Support at Home means there is an incentive for providers to encourage people to make the switch from CHSP.
But tensions are rising in the community, said Mr Kilpatrick, who described many CHSP clients as “proud and self-reliant” and as coming from a farming background where they have been responsible for doing things themselves.
“Understandably, they only want to pay for services that they need,” Mr Kilpatrick said.
Govt sounds alarm on IAT failures
WA Health Director General Dr Shirley Bowen also appeared at the Perth hearing, where she expressed concerns about the Integrated Assessment Tool on behalf of the WA Government.
Pointing to WA Minister for Aged Care and Seniors Simone McGurk’s submission – which states it is “completely unacceptable that assessors are not able to override decisions” in certain circumstances – Dr Bowen said the WA Government is “not against the methodology of having an algorithm” but is concerned about the inability to override.
“Many of our clinical delegates who do these assessments are very, very skilled. They do them day in, day out, and they have for many years,” Dr Bowen said.
“These experienced assessors are no longer now decision-makers. Instead, they collect data for an opaque formula that they cannot correct, even when they see in front of their own eyes that the clinical outcome is wrong for the person in front of them.
“It has led to a lot of professional distrust, but more importantly, they are supporting clients and families in explaining why this is the case.”
She said the state government has provided many examples to the commonwealth review of older people with significant frailty, complex clinical needs, advanced dementia or substantial caring pressures receiving outcomes that clinicians would not have expected based on their professional judgment.
“They work directly with older people all the time,” said Dr Bowen.
“Their feedback is that the assessment tools and algorithms must be capable of accommodating individual complexity [and] urgency and that experienced clinical assessors should have appropriate mechanisms to escalate or override outcomes when circumstances warrant it.”
The inquiry has so far published 197 submissions. It is due to report on 24 November 2026.
The next hearing is due to take place in Canberra on 22 September.
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