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(iStock.com\/FG Trade)<\/p>\nAgeing Australia chief executive officer Tom Symondson has opened the peak body\u2019s New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory state conference with a warning that the Support at Home program \u201cis not doing what we all hoped that it would.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many older Australians, Support at Home is \u201cnot yet delivering the promise\u201d it was intended to, he said, and there are a lot of people still waiting to access it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would be forgiven with now 250,000 \u2013\u00a0I proudly announced yesterday when I was asked by someone\u00a0that there are 200,000 people waiting for Support at Home,\u00a0100,000 who have been approved for a package and haven\u2019t got one yet,\u00a0and 100,000 who are on a waiting list to get a package \u2013 and I was corrected. We love that, don\u2019t we?\u00a0I was corrected by one of my colleagues who said,\u00a0\u2018oh, actually, it\u2019s gone up by 50,000\u2019,\u201d Mr Symondson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, apparently, there\u2019s a secret list of 50,000 people\u00a0who are not yet even on the list to be assessed,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cBut there are a lot of people waiting for home care.\u00a0There are a lot of people who cannot get into CHSP,\u00a0and increasingly, there are a lot of people who cannot get into beds.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Mr Symondson also encouraged delegates to not get stuck in a pessimistic outlook and instead look to what can be changed and improved.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy challenge to all of us is to stop focusing so heavily and so consistently\u00a0on those headline numbers,\u00a0because negativity and pessimism in itself grows\u00a0and becomes completely inescapable like a black hole,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat instead I want us to do is to focus on the things that we can change,\u00a0that we have changed, that we are changing,\u00a0and also on the importance of what we all do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Symondson flagged as a great opportunity to reflect on all the great work being done by dedicated employees \u2013 giving a shout-out to Whiddon for being the creators of the celebratory day \u2013 and reminded delegates to reflect on some of the wins the sector achieved this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can challenge the things that are wrong\u00a0while celebrating the things that are good,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cAs they say in America, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. Not everybody can, but people in this room absolutely can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
(iStock.com\/FG Trade)<\/p>\n
Mr Symondson said he noticed previously that the language at Ageing Australia had \u201cbecome increasingly pessimistic or negatively framed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came into this sector, I promised we would never do that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be about staying optimistic \u2013 because if you\u2019re not optimistic, nothing\u2019s possible, everything\u2019s impossible, it\u2019s so much harder if you can\u2019t look to the horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keeping a sense of optimism is important because it works, Mr Symondson said, pointing to how the government did end up recategorising showering into clinical care so that older people wouldn\u2019t have to contribute to that service after sustained sector advocacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember when we were going to have price caps\u00a0on the 1st of July?\u00a0We managed to get them to defer those,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe managed to get them to review the IAT,\u00a0the algorithm.\u00a0They haven\u2019t done it yet,\u00a0but they are starting that review of the algorithm and they\u2019ve already made changes to allow some intervention\u00a0when the stupidest of decisions come out of the algorithm\u00a0that are clearly nonsensical.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0064_aabb69.jpeg\")
Gwen Korebrits gets delegates dancing in their chairs at Ageing Australia\u2019s 2026 state conference in Sydney (CCR)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0066.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
In the spirit of this optimism, the conference opened with a dance and cognitive activity led by Dance Health Alliance CEO and co-founder Gwen Korebrits, while Ageing Australia\u00a0head of quality and research, policy and advocacy Nick Elmitt led an interactive poll.<\/p>\n
The poll asked the more than 130 delegates what movie genre they think aged care is right now.<\/p>\n
Options included drama, action, thriller, feel-good story and documentary.<\/p>\n
It was neck and neck between thriller (38 per cent) and drama (35 per cent) but ultimately the New South Wales delegates joined Victoria and Tasmania in voting for the thriller genre, while Adelaide, Perth and Queensland voted for drama.<\/p>\n
Interested in aged care policy? Read more articles here<\/a> \t\tPost Navigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ageing Australia chief executive officer Tom Symondson has opened the peak body\u2019s New South Wales and Australian Capital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[280456,429303,429304,64,63,314661,44,429305],"class_list":["post-859037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-ageing-australia","tag-ageing-australia-nswact-conference-2026","tag-ageing-australia-state-conference-2026","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hero-slider","tag-news","tag-tom-symondson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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