Health records 6,436 queue departures due to death. Finance identifies at least 160 responsive final documents—and refuses access on resource grounds. Australians deserve the evidence behind the funding decisions.
An aged-care assessment cannot wash someone, prepare their meals or help them safely out of bed. Funding that can actually be used to deliver services can.
That gap between approval and care is where the Commonwealth must now answer some very uncomfortable questions.
On 2 November, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing released five documents in full under FOI 27-3827. Across 42 pages are national waiting figures, correspondence about Sheila Murphy's priority review, and a demographic report containing a stark official count: 6,436 departures from the Support at Home Priority System recorded as being due to death during 2025–26.
That figure deserves scrutiny, not sensationalism. It does not establish that funding delays caused those deaths. The annual queue population includes people already receiving some support and people who obtained a place during the year. Health reports a death proportion of approximately 2%, similar to the previous year's proportion, and attributes the pattern to demographic trends.
But a stable percentage is no substitute for asking whether harm could have been prevented. A broad demographic comparison does not tell us which people died after prolonged waits, what support they received, whether their needs deteriorated, or whether timely additional care could have changed their circumstances.
The public deserves those questions investigated properly.
The same release reports 100,191 people waiting for ongoing funding at their approved classification or transitioned Home Care Package level on 31 March 2026, compared with 94,963 on 31 December 2025. That is an increase of 5,228 across those historical snapshots. It is not today's waiting-list count, and it does not mean everyone counted was receiving no care. It does show the scale of the gap between approved funding levels and allocation.
Then there is the 60/40 mechanism.
Health's published policy says some participants can receive interim funding equal to 60% of their classification. The balance is allocated when it becomes available, without backdating. Providers and participants must prioritise services within the smaller interim budget. Full and interim allocations depend on demand relative to available funding. Urgent-priority and specified short-term pathways are treated differently; it would be wrong to claim that nobody receives full funding.
In our view, making access to the full classified amount wait on available funding is budget-based rationing. That is a policy criticism grounded in the stated mechanism, not a finding of illegality.
The government's explanation is that interim allocations let more people start critical services sooner. That benefit must be weighed honestly. So must the other side: what services are postponed, reduced or unavailable while people wait for the remainder?
For an older person, a service missed this month may be needed this month. A later funding allocation cannot deliver yesterday's assistance. Without backdating, the unallocated portion for the waiting period does not simply arrive later as a catch-up payment.
Finance should help the public understand how that trade-off was designed and costed.
Instead, its 2 November decision on FOI 26-27/092 refuses access on resource grounds. Following a narrowed request excluding emails, drafts and duplicates, Finance reports over 350 search results and estimates that at least 160 final documents are responsive. The request concerns final rate-selection and non-backdating material and financial analysis associated with the interim-funding policy.
Those documents have not been released to us. We cannot claim their contents prove a secret savings target, manipulation of assessments or deliberate harm. Their contents remain unknown.
We can say that Finance identifies relevant final records and has declined to process the request, estimating at least 103 further hours of work. Its reasons cite specialist capacity, MYEFO demands and a two-person FOI team managing more than 70 matters.
Those explanations deserve examination. So do the assumptions behind the estimate, the public interest in disclosure, and whether final decisions, factual financial tables or a workable subset could be released. Finance has refined its search and supplied reasons; the question now is whether those reasons justify refusing access to the requested records.
Transparency must mean more than explaining how difficult transparency would be.
The Health release also names the Aged Care Data Warehouse, Siebel and Services Australia's ACMPS as sources used in the outcome reporting. That establishes real data capabilities and concrete avenues for further inquiry. It does not prove every requested breakdown exists or can be produced instantly. It does make precise questions about data definitions, query methods, waiting duration and outcomes entirely reasonable.
For Sheila, the distinction between information and action remains painfully clear. The released acknowledgement confirms receipt of her priority-only review on 26 September. This package supplies no final urgent-priority decision and no current date on which funding becomes usable by her provider.
Health deserves credit for releasing these documents in full on its recorded deadline. But an FOI release does not itself deliver care, and a review acknowledgement does not resolve the review.
The answers government must provide
- For Sheila: a current priority-review status, the responsible reviewer, itemised scoring and reasons, confirmation of evidence considered, and a specific next decision date. An acknowledgement is not an outcome.
- For care delivery: the actual allocation, usable funding balance and provider commencement date, together with an immediate escalation route where essential services cannot be sustained.
- For national accountability: observed waiting-time distributions and delays between approval, allocation and usable funding, with deaths, hospitalisation, deterioration and residential-care entry examined alongside the support people actually received.
- For the data: clear denominators, counting methods, treatment of estimated death dates, cohort overlap and preliminary figures, plus identification of existing linked or risk-adjusted analyses. A death count must not be presented as a proven count of deaths caused by delay.
- For Finance: an existing inventory or search output for the responsive final records, actual page-count and timing evidence, explanation of the workload calculation, and a concrete proposal for staged or bounded release of the financial basis for 60% funding and non-backdating.
- For the FOI process: corrected document dates, a clear search cutoff and an account of which requested records were found, not held, excluded or withheld. Public accountability requires answers that can be checked.
Older Australians should not have to become investigators to understand the gap between an assessment and the care it is supposed to unlock.
Publish the evidence. Explain the trade-offs. Deliver clear decisions and usable care.
Approval on paper is not enough.
Sources and scope
1. Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, FOI 27-3827, decision dated 2 November 2026 and 42-page release supplied to the Murphy Campaign. National waiting reports: release pp10–11 and 25–26; review acknowledgement: pp31–32; demographics, outcome tables and methodology: pp36–42. Queue-death count: Table 4, p40; historical comparison: Table 6, p41. These are agency-reported figures; the campaign has not independently audited the underlying client data. Personal correspondence and clinical records are not reproduced here.
2. Department of Finance, FOI 26-27/092, decision signed Carly Makin, 2 November 2026, particularly pp4–6. The 160 figure is Finance's minimum estimate of responsive final documents, not a published document schedule. The 103 hours is Finance's estimate, not an independently measured processing time. Copies of the decision and release are retained by the campaign.
3. Health, Funding classifications for Support at Home, interim-access section, checked 2 November 2026:
https://www.health.gov.au/support-at-home-funding-classifications
4. Aged Care (Places Available for Allocation to Individuals 2026–2027) Determination 2026, as made, particularly ss8, 12–14, sets out expenditure/appropriation-based allocation methods. This is supplementary policy context, not a finding about Sheila's individual entitlement:
https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2026L00869/asmade/2026-06-29/text/original/epub/OEBPS/document_1/document_1.html