Phillip Coorey August 4, 2011
"Older Australians deserve greater choice and control over their care" ... Julia Gillard. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
JULIA GILLARD will prepare the ground today for the biggest shake-up of aged care in decades with a speech calling for a more sustainable and flexible system to cope over the long term with the rapidly ageing population.
The Prime Minister will say Australia is about to have two senior generations - retired baby boomers and their parents - and she will point to the release next Monday of a major report by the Productivity Commission which is expected to recommend controversial measures to keep aged care sustainable.
These include selling the family home to use as a bond when moving into aged care.
The Herald understands the commission finds the cost of aged care is discouraging much-needed new investment in the sector to provide for the increase in the elderly population as baby boomers begin to retire.
Consequently, the cost of aged care will need to increase to create incentive to provide services. The commission is expected to recommend a raft of measures which include selling the family home to provide a bond, borrowing against the value of the home to pay a bond, or making periodic payments. In each case, a bond would be returned to the next of kin when the aged care resident passes away.
It is also expected that there will be provisions recommended for those without a home, or other major asset, to make sure they are looked after in their old age. Other options to allow elderly people to stay in their homes longer will also be explored.
In her speech today, Ms Gillard does not outline any of the measures expected in Monday's report, nor give any specific commitments, but speaks of the values to which her government will bring to the debate as it considers the proposals.
''Older Australians deserve greater choice and control over their care arrangements than the system currently gives them,'' she will say.
''Funding arrangements for aged care must be fair and they must be sustainable, both for older Australians themselves and for the broader community.''
Ms Gillard will stress the increasingly aged population must not be seen as a ''problem'' requiring a ''solution''.
But people were living longer than ever before, to the extent ''we now have two senior generations''.
''A new group of people are retiring while the already-retired are living longer too,'' she will say. ''Think of the 90-year-old woman with the 65-year-old son.''
She said there will still be a generation gap between the two tiers of elderly Australia.
The older seniors lived through a period defined by depression and war, while the baby boomers were defined by post-war prosperity and sexual revolution.
The baby-boomers will want security but they will also demand choice with their aged care.
''They change what it meant to be young and they changed what it meant to form families and adult relationships, and they'll change what it means to be old in the same way,'' Ms Gillard will say. ''Older Australians have earned the right to be able to access the care and support that is appropriate to their needs, when they need it.''
The push will enable Ms Gillard to pursue a fresh policy agenda and fix the policy problems from the first term of government.
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