Support at Home Changes From 1 October 2026: What It Means for Aged Care and Disability Support Workers in Melbourne

Published: October 26, 2026 | Clinton Institute (RTO 41597, CRICOS Provider: 03540C) | Melbourne

From 1 October 2026, personal care delivered under Support at Home is fully funded by the Australian Government, so approved participants no longer pay an out-of-pocket contribution for it. For aged care and disability support workers in Melbourne, the practical effect is more deliverable personal care hours, and from 1 December 2026 home care disability workers receive a minimum pay rate increase of up to 15%. Your role, your qualifications and how you deliver care do not change.

What actually changed on 1 October 2026?

Every personal care service under the Support at Home service list moved from the Independence contributions category to the Clinical Supports contributions category. Clinical Supports are fully government funded, so the Australian Government now funds personal care in full and participants no longer pay a contribution for it.

For this to apply to a participant, two things must be true: they are approved to access personal care in their support plan, and they have available Support at Home funds. It is a mandatory change for every Support at Home provider delivering personal care, not a provider-by-provider choice.

Practically, a participant's statement and invoice should no longer carry a contribution line against approved personal care delivered on or after 1 October 2026. If a contribution still appears against personal care on a statement, that is a billing error worth raising with the provider.

Does this change my job, my qualification, or how I deliver care?

No. This is the part most commentary gets wrong. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing states plainly that there are no changes to workforce roles, qualifications, delivery models or registration categories. Personal care can still be delivered by personal care workers, in the same way, under the same arrangements.

The definition of personal care is also unchanged. It still covers assistance with showering, dressing, eating, personal hygiene, non-clinical continence management, and assistance with self-administration of medication. Service IDs are unchanged, eligibility and approval requirements are unchanged, and providers keep the same obligations for delivery, accurate claiming, billing and record keeping.

The only thing that moved is the contribution category used for participant contributions. That is a funding and accounting change, not a change to your profession.

Does the change affect CHSP clients as well?

Not yet, and this correction matters for anyone working in home care today. The Commonwealth Home Support Program transitions to Support at Home no earlier than 1 July 2027. Until that transition happens, client contribution arrangements for CHSP are unchanged.

With more than 1,300 CHSP providers nationally, a large share of the sector's workers are still delivering services under CHSP contribution rules. If you work across both programs, expect the personal care contribution change to reach CHSP clients later than the headlines suggest.

Does removing the contribution mean my client's Support at Home budget goes up?

Not directly, and this is worth being precise about. Personal care services continue to be funded from the participant's available Support at Home budget. Removing the participant contribution does not create a separate unlimited personal care budget and does not automatically increase anyone's funding.

Support at Home uses eight funding classifications rather than the four old Home Care Package levels. From 1 October 2026, annual funding runs from $11,031.56 at Classification 1 to $80,294.00 at Classification 8, indexed annually on 1 July. Ten per cent of each quarterly budget is automatically allocated to care management, which covers plan development, coordination and oversight.

What happens to personal care services delivered before 1 October 2026?

They are unaffected. Claims for services delivered before 1 October 2026 still attract a participant contribution, even if the provider submits the claim after 1 October. The change applies to the date the service was delivered, not the date it was billed.

What does this change mean for my hours, caseload and workload?

This is where the real interest for workers sits. A participant contribution is money that used to come out of the package to fund the same service. With that contribution gone, more of the existing budget is available for services, and the Department expects providers to be talking to participants about whether they want to increase personal care now that the cost is lower for them.

That creates more deliverable personal care hours across the sector. How much of that reaches any individual worker depends on rostering, on how each provider converts freed budget into service hours, and on whether providers use the freed budget to add hours rather than to reduce the hourly rate they pay. There is no guarantee of more hours for any specific worker, and the honest position is that "no change to workforce roles" does not mean "no change to your workload".

What are employers now required to do differently?

Providers have immediate technology and process work: contribution categories managed across service agreements, budgets, statements and invoices all need updating, and care plans may need review where participants want to increase personal care.

There is also a separate compliance expectation that has been widely missed. In Aged Care Quality Bulletin #7-2026, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission says providers cannot treat self-management as hands-off. Section 155-50 of the Aged Care Rules 2025 requires providers to help participants select care and services within their available quarterly budget, make sure everything they claim on Support at Home funding is on the approved service list, and manage the budget so participants do not overspend into unexpected out-of-pocket costs.

New consumer protections are landing alongside this. The Commission can order refunds where providers are found to be overcharging, and can act against providers who do not issue monthly statements. Providers must set reasonable prices based on the cost of delivery, publish the prices they typically charge for each service on the My Aged Care website, keep records showing what their prices include, and are being encouraged to limit price increases to no more than two per year.

What is the pay increase starting 1 December 2026?

Home care employees who provide disability care will receive an initial increase of up to 15% to their minimum award rates under the SCHADS Award, from the first full pay period on or after 1 December 2026. Fair Work published this on 21 September 2026 as part of the Fair Work Commission's gender-based undervaluation priority awards review.

Two things make this significant for anyone choosing aged care or disability support as a career right now. First, it is separate from the 4.75% annual wage review that took effect on 1 July 2026, so it is an additional step up rather than the annual adjustment. Second, the remaining increases follow from the first full pay period on or after 1 October 2027, with the 2027 Annual Wage Review changes included on top.

If you are choosing between qualifications this year, a path that leads to home care disability support work is being revalued faster than most. Minimum rates are floors, not what employers actually pay, and plenty of providers pay above the award.

What are the minimum pay rates for aged care and disability support workers in 2026?

Under the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award (MA000100), the following minimum rates apply from 1 July 2026, after the 4.75% Annual Wage Review increase. Residential aged care facility work is covered by the separate Aged Care Award (MA000018).

For a Level 2 casual worker, the weekend and public holiday rates are $63.39 per hour on Saturday, $81.50 on Sunday and $99.61 on public holidays. Those rates already include the 25% casual loading, so the loading must not be added a second time. Confirm your own classification on the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool, because the rate you are entitled to depends on the classification your employer has applied, not on the job title you use.

Where is the demand for these roles in Melbourne right now?

On a live board check across Melbourne on the morning of 26 October 2026, SEEK carried 1,593 aged care roles for Melbourne VIC and 12,941 nationally. Within a 50 kilometre radius of Dandenong there were 1,132 aged care support worker roles, making it the densest suburban cluster. Indeed showed 1,456 aged care roles in Footscray and 522 community aged care support worker roles in Dandenong advertised at $40.00 to $45.00 per hour with a minimum of six months' experience.

Employer-level hiring is broad. St Vincent's alone lists more than 3,500 roles across Melbourne. Arcare is advertising personal service worker roles across Hillside, Sydenham, Brighton and Caulfield, and Opal is hiring registered and enrolled nurses, care coordinators and personal care assistants across Waverley Valley, Wantirna Views, Croydon Grove, Warrandyte Gardens, Meadow Heights and Altona Gardens.

VicSkills projections point to where the growth sits between 2024 and 2027 for disability support workers: southern metro up by 1,990, northern metro up by 1,951, eastern metro up by 1,660, inner south-east up by 946 and inner metro up by 828. These are live board snapshots rather than a unique-vacancy census, so listings may be duplicated or cross-posted, but the direction is consistent.

The live split in Melbourne ads: the qualification is the difference

The most useful thing the current job market shows is a split along qualification lines, in the same city and often the same hour. Benetas is advertising a casual Personal Care Worker in Clarinda at $37 to $40 per hour and states that the role requires a Certificate III in Individual Support or Aged Care. BaptistCare is advertising a Home Care Worker in Dandenong at $34 per hour with no experience required.

Both roles are real work. But the qualified version of the work is being advertised at a higher rate, and the employers advertising above-market rates are increasingly leading with three things: above-market pay, genuine flexibility, and weekly pay. Home care ads in that pattern are now running on listings between eleven and twenty-seven days old, which suggests employers competing hardest for workers who can show up when rostered.

This is why the qualification argument matters more in 2026 than it did three years ago, and why it is worth checking what an employer actually requires before you commit to a course.

Does this change apply to NDIS supports?

No. Support at Home is the aged care program, and this contribution change does not apply to NDIS supports. The NDIS changes run on their own timeline: budgets progressively reset from 1 October 2026, renewals are affected from 1 February 2027, and a 90-day claim window applies from 1 December 2026. If you work across both sectors, treat them as two separate policy tracks rather than one combined shift.

What does this mean if you are studying aged care in Melbourne right now?

It means the timing of your qualification matters, and so does what it unlocks. CHC33021 Certificate III in Individual Support is the entry point that meets the requirement now appearing in ads like the Benetas role. CHC43015 Certificate IV in Ageing Support opens senior, team leader and care coordinator roles, and CHC52025 Diploma of Community Services leads into case management and program coordination work.

The qualification is not the only thing employers screen on. Every advertisement reviewed this cycle also wanted a current police check, a working with children check where relevant, a verifiable work history or placement record, and the right to work. A 120-hour placement record does the job of a reference, which is why Clinton Institute arranges placement with Arcare, Opal Healthcare and Benetas rather than leaving students to source it themselves.

For international students, work rights are set by the Australian Government and not by any training provider. A student visa currently allows 48 hours per fortnight while in session, with unlimited hours during scheduled breaks, and those conditions are worth checking directly with the Department of Home Affairs.

What a Clinton Institute student is actually buying

"The qualification is the ticket. But in Melbourne right now the difference between getting a roster and getting a good roster is whether you can show supervised hours, whether you can be rostered when the shift is unpopular, and whether your employer can rely on you with a higher-acuity client. We put students with Arcare, Opal Healthcare and Benetas because those are the employers actively hiring in the volume suburbs, and because a placement record from a provider that size is the reference that actually gets read."

— Shane Batterson, Career Advisor, Clinton Institute

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