I am a self-funded retiree, clutching a Commonwealth Health Care Card, my assets just over the cutoff for an aged care pension. I rely on a Level 4 Home Care Package to manage the late effects of childhood paralytic polio because I am unable to utilise NDIS assistance due to the fact that I was over the age of 65 when it rolled out in my area.
Like countless others, I’m caught in a system that punishes resilience and rewards wealth. Australia’s aged care crisis isn’t abstract to me – it’s my daily reality. And it’s a reality our governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have betrayed by abandoning the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (ACRC).
The ACRC, delivered on March 1, 2021, was a beacon of hope: 148 recommendations forged from 99 days of hearings, 641 witnesses, and over 10,000 public submissions. It promised a rights-based, entitlement-driven aged care system where no one would be left behind.
Yet, as the Aged Care Act 2024 prepares to take effect on July 1, 2025, that promise lies in tatters. Successive governments — Labor and Liberal-National alike — have traded compassion for profit, outsourcing our moral duty to global corporations and leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves. This is not just a policy failure; it’s a betrayal of our shared humanity. We must act now.
For over two decades, aged care has been hollowed out by privatisation. Since the Australian Labor Party took office in 2022, it has doubled down on the Liberal-National Coalition’s legacy of outsourcing, entrenching a system where consultants dictate policy and care is rationed by cost.
The budget tells the story: $17.7 billion in 2021-22 has ballooned to $36.2 billion in 2024-25, yet the number of recipients hasn’t tripled, nor have services expanded to match. Where has the money gone? To the pockets of privatised providers and their army of advisors—KPMG, PwC, Accenture, and a slew of niche firms—whose $1.5 billion in assessment tenders alone dwarf the care delivered to our elders. This isn’t efficiency; it’s exploitation.
The ACRC envisioned a different future: a new Act ensuring universal access to high-quality care, free of fees, rooted in the dignity of the individual. It called for a levy, perhaps a 1% income tax or Medicare increase, to fund this vision sustainably, a proposal so sensible that the ACRC recommended referral to the Productivity Commission for refinement. Instead, the Aged Care Task Force, chaired by Minister Anika Wells and stacked with industry insiders, rejected this in favour of “intergenerational equity”—a buzzword masking a cruel reality.
From July 1, pensioners like Bill, a renter with $10,000 in savings, will pay $2,467 yearly for home care. That’s $47 a week from a full pension of $572.20, nearly 10% of his income. For what? To choose between a shower or a meal, as services like home maintenance, transport, and social supports are slashed from the “Support at Home” program. This isn’t equity; it’s a tax on frailty.
The Act’s open-ended nature offers a glimmer of hope. The Department of Health and Aged Care and Minister Wells could still intervene and exempt low-income earners from co-payments, broaden service lists, and restore human oversight to assessments. But time is running out. Digitisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Automated Decision Making (ADM) are already replacing case managers with algorithms, turning complex human needs into data points.
Imagine an 80-year-old, hands trembling from Parkinson’s, navigating a digital portal to plead for help – or worse, challenging an ADM ruling to the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, only to find the system rigged against them. AI can crunch numbers, but it can’t feel desperation. We’re digitising dignity out of existence.
This isn’t speculation; it’s happening. The Single Assessment System, outsourced for $1.4 billion to firms like Advanced Personnel Management, prioritises efficiency over empathy. Tenders were awarded to the same players who designed and trialled it – conflict of interest be damned. Meanwhile, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, meant to protect our elders, has spent $600 million on outsourced “advice” since 2021, morphing into a brokerage rather than a regulator.
When serious incidents – abuse, neglect, or unexplained deaths – occur, penalties are laughably minimal. The Act sidesteps custodial sentences and waters down fines, ensuring systemic abuse festers unchecked. Just ask Sue, who fought tirelessly for her husband Gene’s care only to face trauma and neglect. Their story is not unique; it’s the norm.
The cost of this failure isn’t just moral; it’s economic. Aged care spending is spiralling, projected to grow 5.7% annually through 2034-35, yet outcomes worsen. In 2021, my pressure socks cost $50; today, they cost $100. A residential deposit was $450,000 in 2020; now, it’s $750,000. A walker? Up from $350 to $650-$750. Privatisation has more than doubled costs in four years, with co-contributions and exclusions piling on the burden.
Older Australians, especially those without wealth, will opt out of care until collapse forces them into hospitals or residential facilities – costing taxpayers more. The Task Force’s claim that Baby Boomers, painted as a “rich mob” by Minister Wells, should foot the bill ignores reality: most live on pensions or dwindling savings, not luxury estates.
We’ve been here before. The East India Company once held Asia’s purse strings; now, global financiers and investment funds dictate our aged care. When their profits plateau, they’ll walk away, leaving governments scrambling.
The ACRC warned against this division between haves and have-nots, yet the Task Force – convened for six months with 180 submissions, versus the ACRC’s 30-month, 10,000-submission odyssey – pushed a profit-first model. Its intergenerational rhetoric is a political ploy, not a solution. Superannuation can help the wealthy, but for pensioners, it’s “the dregs” being drained.
So, what can we do?
The Inspector General of Aged Care must act. Upload the Non-Compliance Decision Log from July 2024 to January 2025 – let the public see the failures. Read Sue and Gene’s story and demand accountability. Push the Minister and Department to use the Act’s flexibility: exempt pensioners from co-payments, mandate 20% of residential beds for fully supported residents and ensure assessments prioritise individual needs over algorithms.
Strengthen penalties – abuse should carry the same weight in aged care as anywhere else. Above all, reject the Task Force’s ideology and honour the ACRC’s call for a levy-funded, equitable system.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock warned of technology outpacing humanity, leaving the vulnerable disconnected. We’re there now. If we don’t restore face-to-face support and government stewardship, our elders will become second-class citizens – hidden in profit-driven institutions, their suffering ignored. This isn’t just about aged care; it’s about who we are as a society.
The clock ticks toward July 1, 2025. Good people must stand together to arrest this preventable tragedy. Act now, or history will judge us harshly for abandoning those we should revere.
My heart is broken. How did we become inhumane in this lucky country? As a 79 year old pensioner I dread my future. Voluntary assisted dying is the most attractive option.
When the pandemic arrived I was hit violently in my heart. It was so hard, the message that my heart spoke to me, that I knew what was in store. The message was plain and simple “They are trying to kill you!” This was my intuition talking and it’s no joke. Prior in life, I always ignored those messages until this happened to me once before. My heart gave me a message I could not ignore, and when I took notice of this message and acted, it ended my marriage. All I can say is that it was was a serious invasion of another person’s privacy and involved someone who was in a position of authority and should have known better.
Hello Robin,
I too want assisted voluntary death. I would rather that than be treated like some sub human because I am old. I have had 4 children, worked all of my life starting at 12 on farms because my parents were poor. Let us choose when to die, with dignity.
How do we act on this please.
I work In aged care both residential and community and see all of these things all the time. It is so wrong the commission demand all this paperwork from us and have no idea about anything that truly happens it is not care for our elderly for us to be demanded to do paper work non stop when we could be more proactive on spending time with these people in other ways it is criminal. I have seen so many of our elderly suffer and our hands are tied to help them because of money and govt protocols. It so in humane many that are in the community are suffering ones that dont have family or anyone to be there for them.
Where is the respect for our elderly this is not a third world country these politicians need to be made accountable they too will become old one day, but not poor because of what they have put in place to start with they have no compassion. All about money and profit it makes sick inside.
So how can we stand up to them.
Tracey what you say is so true. How do we stand up to them? Well, we have tried for so very very long and nothing has changed; the work of the Royal Commission was used by our politicians simply as window dressing and not a genuine map for change and effective reform.
Like it or not, you know what my answer is – clone Donald Trump and his band of merry men and drain the disgusting swamp we have here as well. Politics is not called a dirty word for no reason!
Thank you for your concern and care for our elderly. Your heartfelt frustration of how our aged care operates on so many levels in this country is felt by so many yet it becomes simply voices in the wilderness because no one in any position of power cares because it does not hit their own fat wallets.
Dear Robin. I hear you as do so many others. What breaks my heart in this inhuman society where greed predominates, is that we are actually choosing to die rather than be institutionalised and forced to live a life of despair.
What country with any human decency, moral compass or , indeed a backbone, places their seniors in a position where suicide is a potential option or choice in lieu of accepting the multiple substandards of aged care that are on offer. And they call this a progressive world! “God help us all” will be the catchcry when man’s inhumanity to man predominates in all our lives, not only here, but globally.
Some countries are worse than others but this country is not far behind. If you are an oligarch or have a pocket full of money, life will not be so grim, but for the average person who has worked hard all their lives, this current state of affairs is an unconscionable payback.
The government’s attitude to the welfare of people requiring aged care is grossly underrated.
The aging population is growing and as long as people keep reproducing, requirements for the everlasting aged care population will increase.
Despite their funding of ‘aged care providers,’ of which there are many, there aren’t enough ‘carers’ to do the work.
All talk – and throwing money around in the wrong places doesn’t help those requiring help.
It won’t be until those at the top of the decision-making chain get old that they will realise they have gone in the wrong direction. No hope for me now.
Further to my last comment about the poor use of funding for the aged care sector – I believe the same could be said about NDIS and the mess that was created when they believed they knew what they were doing with funding. Botched.
NDIS needs to be means tested, just like Aged Care.
What a national disgrace? SHAME SHAME on Government I think they forget they work for us we as Australian should not expect this for are Elderly
I worked in aged care and I seen first hand how it’s all about the money. As soon as a person passes away everthing is removed from the room the same day so they can put some else in. The whole system is broken. People in aged care live appallingly. They pay 80% to the home out of their pension for what I don’t know. It’s not good food that for sure Then the rest of their money go to the chemist for shit they don’t need. It’s one of the biggest scams Going around. They pay to be treated like this yet prisoners. Get treated like royalty. And we pay for them as tax payers and they get paid a wage. Does anyone else see this. As WTF wake up Australia we are all being rip off and it doesn’t end with are tax’s We need to stop the horrible treatment of the elderly.
Sorry but you cannot expect younger people, many of whom are renting, to completely fund the costs of older people, maintaining their fully owned homes so they can then pass them onto their children. Currently, a significant portion of home care funding goes towards cleaning, gardening and home modifications, at the request of older people. It is a positive thing that people will be asked to help pay for those services.
Home care is currently 98% taxpayer funded. It is fair to ask the older, wealthier generation to help fund more of those costs.
I can see your point. Young people do not want their taxes to be spent on helping older people. They want it to be spent on affordable housing and free childcare and free NDIS with no means testing. You forget though, that these people were once your age and most of us have worked all of our lives, me from the age of 12 at farms, picking fruit etc while still going to school. No music or sport for us. You will be old one day, God help you then. I don’t really care, I just want assisted dying made legal for old age as it is a terminal illness. Who wants to live their last years in sodden urine filled nappies with Dementia or worse. I will happily die when it’s my turn and my kids can have what I have left. I hope you remember this post when you are an older person.
Anita – Do not the young people have parents? Did they not work all those years to provide a home, education etc. for their children? How old were the parents when they paid off their homes, if indeed, that is the case? Did not the young people who were parents, and are now old, not contribute toward the elderly of that time? So why is the youth of today considered to be above doing the same thing and let me tell you it is not the youth tax that is the major contributor as your comment implies. The ME generation is certainly
alive and well. Life has never been fair so we all have to do the best we can for as long as we can and work to achieve our goals both small and large and not expect handouts because you only have one dollar and your neighbour has two.
Start small, have realistic expectations and work hard to have the same trajectory as the older citizens did in the past. They may not have had the same problems as the youth of today but they had problems and difficulties too and the road to home ownership was just as hard. You want to blame someone, blame all the immigration, the wanton wastage of taxpayers money and the incompetent governments both past and present who would not know how to run a tuckshop.
The country’s old people should ALL be taken care of irrespective of their wealth. The wealthy would not go into the aged care system because they can afford DECENT care which the majority of us cannot. I do not begrudge anyone their station in life and I hate the Tall Poppy syndrome which is very much alive in Australia. By the way, I am not one of the wealthier ones.
Everything that has been said is true. It is no wonder that any person with any intelligence, a sense of fairness and a good dose of common sense would feel repulsed by politicians who really do not give a damn.
If a Royal Commission’s recommendations falls on deaf ears – what chance do we have of any worthwhile reforms when the govt. and big business are strong bedfellows. It seems to me that we are still in the world of lords and serfs because, excluding the very wealthy who have schemes to keep their wealth intact, it is all about squeezing out every dollar from the workers to maintain the lifestyles of those in power. There is no humanity, there are no accounts and balances, no transparency and no fairness in the way they do business. Look at how the NDIS is run, by many criminals and fraudsters – where are the protections, audits and accountability. Another failure by a Govt. who couldn’t successfully run a tuckshop on their own. Politics really is a dirty word.
We received a Support Plan this week for a lady who needs residential aged care. The assessment was completed by one of the third parties contracted to do so. The language, spelling and grammar in the assessment was appalling. But even worse, the plan contained very little information that painted a picture of the persons functional and clinical challenges. As a result, we really have no idea what her care and support needs would be, and where she would be best placed if we had a vacancy. Hopefully, this is a one-off situation, but my experience tells me that this is our new future. The author is right, bureaucracy now trumps humanity, in an industry that should always first consider the humanity.
I can feel the anger and disappointment in the article by Peter Willcocks. It is the same anger and frustration I feel when facing clients whose beloved family member – spouse, parent, uncle. aunt, sister have been harmed in aged care in one of many ways. Meals of little nutritional value, woken for a shower very early from a deep night’s sleep, having a serious fall when left unattended, left unprotected and assaulted by another resident – and so it goes on – and on. All the ‘older person’ is told is that if there is a problem – the complaints system can help. Well, in my experience of almost 15 years, the complaints system itself seems to be incapable of insisting upon remedial measures from the provider to return the person to their prior health and well-being. No matter, that kind of accident will not happen again, because the necessary data has been fed into the Canberra computer. The final test of this difficult and sometimes confusing outcome of the new Aged Care Act 2024 will, for me, be in the measures dealing with making agreements submitted to the new resident / consumer which had a firm -even enforceable – status in he “User Rights Principles” of the current Aged Care Act 1997. This is an opportunity for matters to be brought to the table and discussed by the provider and resident/ consumer and / or their supporters by way of mediation or even arbitration. Additionally, the contract itself must be enforceable either by application to the Civil & Administrative Tribunals in each State and Territory, or to the Local or Magistrates courts – both of which are accessible to rural, regional and remote areas. Am I dreaming? We will see next month when that part of the Rules will be released for comment.
You jump through all sorts of hoops at Centrelink and even get told to apply for hardship then months down the track still no reply,we all paid taxes for many years there wasn’t superannuation like today,the system is totally unfair
They would like us dead, of that I am sure, and they will come up with anything they can think of to achieve that end.
Hi Carolyn,
I would like to choose my own death. We should be lobbying for assisted dying with dignity rather than going into Aged Care Homes where you lie in sodden urine and worse. Given poor quality food. We all should be given that option.
Hi Carolyn
What good is a dead resident From my observation,we are kept alive when in the morning
the drug trolly appears.Everyone getssome sort of medication plus more during the day.
A chemist and provider gold mine
Hear! Hear! Well said. Excellent and from my understanding, accurate points. Thankyou.
Thank you for writing about this Peter. and for your insights Rodney. What has happened is not a surprise. I have spent much of my life dealing with the consequences of dysfunctional social systems and the ideological beliefs that cause them. I studied this before coming to Australia. I watched these problems develop in Australia as I grew older and now need to depend on this system myself. I tried hard to warn governments about what they were doing in the 1990s and subsequently but was ignored.
Aged care is only one of many problems and social failures, but because it affects everyone and every family, it was well placed to initiate real change in our society. The Royal Commission was a missed opportunity.
The Royal Commission is not without fault. Governments see those who think like them as credible and they appointed both commissioners and counsel. This Royal Commission was consequently deeply divided from the outset but forced to accept evidence. There were three commissioners and two were judges. The initial interim report identified deep structural flaws in the system and promised to address them. Doing this would have challenged the belief in free markets. After the first judge died the Royal Commission walked away from this finding and engaged primarily with those who had developed the previous system .
The advocacy group Aged Care Crisis saw this happening. They made submissions to the Royal Commission warning and challenging, but many were not published. Professor Kathy Eager who collected staffing data for the Commissioner also soon realised what was happening and wrote critically about this.
When the replacement judge realised what was happening he disagreed. The two commissioners made conflicting recommendations in the final report. The judge recommended fundamental changes that would make the centralised system more independent. It would be managed regionally. Central organisations and governments would support the regional management and help to integrate services. The other Commissioner, a past public servant simply advised upgrading and reforming the existing centralised market controlled system. The judge indicated that this sort of renovation did not address the deep flaws in the system and it would not work. Aged Care Crisis were critical but hopeful. Professor Eager described the public servants recommendations as a “get out of jail card”.
The Morrison government ignored the judge and handed the reform processes to those who had designed and supported the previous failed system. The department had to follow even though some were probably unhappy. Instead of fixing the problems the act gave us an even more tightly centralised and controlled system with more processes and more regulation – described by some as ‘the regulatory trap’.
Free market beliefs have undermined and eroded civil society leaving power in the hands of big business. Governments are now trapped by the power of successful business. Looking to them for change is not realistic.
Regulatory changes are needed but not sufficient unless they change the system. Change must ultimately come from a rebuilt civil society itself. Local communities are on site and and they need to unite, form powerful groups that take an interest in what is happening, investigate and then act locally and politically to take control of care and market back into their communities. This was a recommendation made by the Royal Commission’s own advisory group that examined successful international systems. It challenged power and was ignored.
Michael Wynne – I refer to last your paragraph, particularly the last sentence which says it all – “Change must ultimately come from a rebuilt civil society itself. Local communities are on site and and they need to unite, form powerful groups that take an interest in what is happening, investigate and then act locally and politically to take control of care and market back into their communities. This was a recommendation made by the Royal Commission’s own advisory group that examined successful international systems. It challenged power and was ignored.”
However, I do not believe people power will change the Canberra boffins – you have proved that in the comment you wrote below by highlighting how many times good advice and recommendations were consistently ignored.
Politics has nothing to do with caring for its citizens – it is all about career, power and wealth – and the few politicians who try to do the right thing are swiftly shunted aside.
As I said in one of my earlier comments, we need a clone of Donald Trump to clear the swamp and when that is done have stringent laws – not Guidelines, Charters, Statements etc. – but legislated laws by statute to ensure that the rot will never permeate the aged care sector again. Unfortunately, this outcome, no matter how much it is wished for, still remains a fantasy.
You also say that we need to rebuild a civil society but to rebuild, it means that it was there in the first place – I have never seen it in my lifetime regarding the general treatment society’s most vulnerable. Unlike the academics, I do not ascribe to the benevolent view that successful and wealthy business people are not aware of their actions. It is not evidence or criticism that challenges their flawed belief in their identity, it is simply anger at being caught out and called out for who they know they are. Nonetheless, I will live in hope that the fantasy of a decent aged care will one day become a reality.
Oh how true , this is. This has been happening for years now, the reality is, no-one really cares about frail and unwell older people, they are treated like a commodity to fill the purses of corporate businesses, the same is happening in our Child Care system, we as a society should all feel ashamed of the way we treat our most vulnerable, governments need to show some guts and stop skirting around the financial needs of the providers. The new Aged Care Act will not improve rights for older people or empower them.
Wise people who have studied our behaviour in the past have pointed out that it is good people who do the most harm in the world. This is because they believe in what they are doing. They have built very successful lives and worked hard to become powerful and influential using these beliefs. They simply cannot believe that the ideas on which they built their success were flawed. They are threatened by evidence and criticism as it challenges their identity – who they are. They cannot accept this and tend to respond by discrediting and attacking the messenger.
As an empathic and understanding society we need to recognise this problem and address it with insight and understanding – analysing without blaming. In a well functioning and engaged civil society many different experiences and a balance of power creates the checks and balances that prevent these things from happening. We need to rebuild this..
Very good article. I do not understand why the wprd ‘care’ is used. We can make the start for change by not using the fake words fed to us.
You referenced the IG for the aged/or the industry. Can’t be noth. Was she the queensland guardian lwhen the horrors were exposex by the ABC?
As a podiatrist I see people every day who are hopeful they will die before they have to enter into aged care. I can only say I feel the same. It is bewildering that it has been allowed to come to this point. Is there no one in Government with enough self respect and self-honesty to effect an equitable system.