I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet, the people of the Kulin nation, upon whose ancestral lands we stand today, and pay my respect to elders past and present, as well as to First Nations people here today.
For tens of thousands of years, our First Nations communities have held deep knowledge of care, kinship, and ageing. As we look to the future of aged care, we have so much to learn from these traditions of respect, intergenerational responsibility and community wellbeing.
Thank you for inviting me to address you today.
I would particularly like to thank CEDA chair, Christine Bartlett, and Chief Executive, Melinda Cilento, for asking me to attend.
CEDA and other non-partisan think tanks play a vital role in shaping our national economic and policy conversations. Since its foundation in the 1960s, CEDA‘s advocacy has contributed to some truly profound reforms in Australian policy.
It shares our government’s goal of achieving good policy outcomes that make life better for Australians – the most recent being our once-in-a-generation reform to the way older people are cared for, and the way aged care is funded in Australia, with the commencement of our transformative new Aged Care Act.
Last Saturday, the new Act took effect – and with it, we turned the page on a new era of aged care that finally puts the rights and dignity of older people at its core.
These reforms bring aged care into the 21st century: enshrining new rights for older people, imposing new responsibilities on providers, and firming up the financial foundations of the system to ensure its future sustainability.
Everyone in this room will remember the harrowing stories the royal commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety brought to light.
The commission's report was mononymously titled ‘Neglect’.
It spoke of a system that was 'unacceptable and unsustainable'; its treatment of older Australians 'unsafe’, ‘unkind and uncaring'.
It said of the former Liberal government, 'Their main consideration was the minimum commitment they could get away with.'
It was distressing reading for anyone who’s ever made the already difficult decision to seek aged care for a loved one – but it gave us a clear roadmap for how to begin to turn the system around.
These stories, alongside the commission’s recommendations, were the fuel for the Prime Minister’s vision for a fairer, more sustainable and rights-based aged care system that has been the bedrock of our work over the past three years.
Even before the new Act, that work included :
- New transparency measures to make it easier for older people and their families to determine the quality of care on offer through Star Ratings and Dollars to Care.
- Better clinical coverage with nurses onsite at residential care homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – now giving older people 7.1 million minutes of extra care every single day.
- And almost $18 billion in wage increases to attract and retain highly skilled people for our outstanding aged care workforce.
I want to acknowledge here CEDA’s own contribution to these reforms – through the 'Duty of Care' report series in particular, CEDA has been a key player in advocating for better wages in the aged care sector.
Our reforms have already made a significant difference to the quality of life of older people in care, but at the core of this work was always going to be the new Aged Care Act – the number one recommendation from the royal commission, the development of which was a key priority of our first term in government.
We took the time to consult genuinely and widely with the aged care sector and older people’s advocacy bodies during the design of the legislation because we wanted to make sure we got it right.
I can’t tell you how exciting – and what a relief – it is for that work to have now come to fruition.
The new Act and our new Support at Home program marks a generational renewal of our aged care system.
It introduces:
- an Australian-first new statement of rights that outlines the standards of respect and behaviour that older people can and should expect;
- a more sophisticated regulatory model, to ensure providers do the right thing and to foster a culture of best practice, not bare minimum; and
- strengthened quality standards to make sure that people are getting high quality care.
Of course, for many people, aged care begins in their own home – and the new Support at Home program is the other major change heralded by the new Act, replacing the old Home Care Packages program.
The royal commission, and our consultation ever since, heard that above all else people want to stay in their homes – close to family and community – for as long as they can.
That’s exactly what we want Support at Home to achieve for older Australians and their loved ones.
In designing this program, we had to have the conversation that successive governments have shirked – how we make the sector sustainable not just for our parents and grandparents, but for our children and grandchildren in generations to come, too.
Of course, government continues to fund 100% of clinical care for older people under Support at Home.
Those who can afford to contribute to independence and everyday living supports are now asked to do so, while those of lower means receive extra support.
We’ve worked to strike a balance that makes both financial and ethical sense – asking those with capacity to make a co-contribution, so the system can continue to support those without.
The new funding model will ensure aged care remains viable, accessible and high quality in the long term – something far from guaranteed under the old system.
At its heart, this reform agenda is driven by a simple idea: that every Australian deserves dignity, safety and respect in later life, and that a sustainable aged care system is part of how we uphold that.
The new Act, the new Support at Home program, and the structural reforms that sit behind them are designed to stand the test of time. They’re designed to make the system more equitable, transparent and responsive.
That means continuing to strengthen consumer rights. It means continuing to back the workforce with fair pay and training opportunities. And it means ensuring the sector remains financially sustainable so that care is there for generations to come.
Aged care must stay connected to the health system, not siloed from it. As our population ages, the lines between health, housing and aged care will continue to blur – and our system has to be ready for that.
We’re building the foundations of a sector that can keep evolving: one that can innovate, adopt technology, and support models of care that put people, not systems, at the centre.
The new Act delivers so many positive improvements to how we age, how older people are seen and how we care for people as they age.
But legislation can only ever be a scaffold for the system we want to build.
I have said many times that the commencement of the new Act is not the end of the reform process.
We must keep building on these strong foundations – with government working in partnership with the sector, the workers and advocates.
It’s incumbent on all of us to have a vision for what we want aged care to look like over the coming years and decades.
I want to see an aged care system that is fair and accessible – where being disadvantaged, marginalised or having complex needs isn’t a barrier to accessing care.
I want to see an aged care system that truly values its workers, supports them to do what they love and gives them opportunities to grow. Where technology is used to its full extent not to replace human care but to enhance it.
I want to see a system where people actively plan to age, and do so with pride and purpose – not hidden from view, and with joy and fulfilment.
The reforms that Labor has delivered since coming to government have already done so much to move us toward a system of care that looks more like this.
But as always with systemic reform, there is no static end state and there will always be more to do.
So – where to from here?
Australia’s population is ageing faster than at any point in our history.
Within a decade, 1 in 5 Australians will be over 65 – so a key test for the system will be whether we can build enough high-quality accommodation to meet future demand.
But our infrastructure hasn’t kept up. For too long, aged care development has been held back by a system that hasn’t rewarded new bed supply and has entrenched underinvestment.
Facilities are ageing, capital is constrained, and too many communities don’t have enough beds to meet local demand.
That cycle can’t continue. We need a system that supports new construction and upgrades, so that all older Australians can access care – and so providers have the confidence to build, expand and renew their services.
This will mean exploring new models of care and accommodation, and linking aged care to the broader national conversation about housing.
Retirement living and assisted accommodation can play a part in easing housing pressure, but we also need models for those with higher care needs, and for communities where supply is tight and land is scarce.
The public, private and community sectors each play a vital role in aged care — and each must play a role in its future if we are to meet the growing demand.
Government investment through programs like the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, through which we have invested a billion dollars over the past three years will continue to target critical shortages and bridge capital gaps, but government grants alone can’t, and were never intended to, deliver at the scale required.
That’s why we need to create and foster the stability and transparency that gives investors the confidence to build again.
And things are already progressing – viability has improved, confidence is returning, and structural reforms are embedding long-term resilience after the disruption of COVID.
We want to work with the sector to see more developers and financiers step forward. The capital base needs to be diversified and sophisticated.
The aged care sector is a quiet engine of the Australian economy. It employs more than a quarter of a million people, supports regional construction and training, and keeps older people active in their communities.
By restoring sustainability and investibility, we’re not only improving care; we’re building an industry that can grow, innovate and employ for decades to come.
Of course, one of the key levers is the way residential accommodation is funded and priced.
We’ve commissioned an independent review to ensure accommodation pricing in residential care is fair, future-proof, and reflects real costs – so providers can invest in quality without compromising affordability.
Too many providers are caught in the middle: expected to deliver modern, safe facilities while operating under outdated pricing assumptions that no longer reflect construction costs, land values, or the true cost of capital.
The review will examine how we can better balance affordability for residents with the certainty and incentives that providers need to invest in high-quality accommodation.
And importantly, it will look at how to ensure that people who are less well off are not left behind when it comes to accessing residential care.
We want a model that’s fair to consumers, fair to taxpayers, and fair to the people and organisations who build and run aged care homes.
That’s how we make sure that in five, ten, twenty years’ time, Australians still have access to the kind of accommodation we’d want for our own parents and grandparents.
When we talk about aged care, it’s easy to focus only on what happens when something goes wrong – when someone needs help, or can’t manage at home anymore. But ageing well begins long before that point.
I’m not just the Minister for Aged Care, looking after a formal, highly regulated system. I have the honour of holding the Seniors portfolio too – and a major focus of my work going forward is positive ageing: supporting Australians to stay healthy, independent and connected for as long as possible.
We know the evidence – staying active, eating well, and caring for mental health can help prevent disease and promote health in later life.
But we also know that social connection is just as powerful a predictor of health and longevity as physical wellbeing.
Loneliness and isolation are among the greatest challenges facing older Australians. They’re linked to poorer health outcomes, reduced mobility, and even earlier mortality.
They’re also largely preventable.
Governments can’t legislate social connection – but we can build the conditions that make it easier: strong local communities, accessible transport, inclusive digital technology, and lifelong learning programs that keep people engaged.
We can also harness technology more intelligently: from wearable devices that support people’s independence to online platforms that help older people stay connected to friends, family and services, no matter where they live.
And we can work across generations. Older Australians have so much to offer – as mentors, carers, community leaders, and volunteers.
The more we value and integrate those contributions, the stronger our social fabric becomes.
Positive ageing isn’t just about extending life, it’s about enriching it.
It’s about a society that celebrates age, rather than fears it. One where older people are not pushed to the margins, but supported to remain at the heart of our communities.
That’s the kind of Australia our government is working to create.
I’ve only scratched the surface with the reform challenges that lay ahead of us today.
As well as the challenges of an ageing population and the need to build, we face challenges around workforce, consumer choice, and ensuring high quality care is delivered right across the diversity of our aged care settings.
So as we stand just one week into this new framework for aged care, we can see the outlines of a better system – one that respects rights, rewards care, and restores confidence.
We’ll keep working hand-in-hand with providers, workers, and older Australians to make sure these reforms deliver the change we promised: safer, fairer care for every person, in every place.
Reform doesn’t happen in an instant – it continues in the work we do every single day to build a better system, and better lives for older Australians.
If we get this right, in 30 years time Australians will look back and see a generation that rebuilt aged care from the ground up to be a system that values care, dignity and connection.
Thank you.