industry & reform
dismayed at the low level of attention the
royal commission has garnered, and he
will be talking to the minister for aged care,
Richard Colbeck, about a public campaign
aimed at tackling ageism and bringing
ageing to the centre of public discourse.
“It got a couple of days on the front
pages and then it just disappeared. And
when you think about the other royal
commissions that have occurred over
the last two to three years, they got more
space in the newspapers than our royal
commission is currently getting,” he says.
“And I still think that is reflective of the
ageism that exists in society today. But in
terms of its recommendation – we agree
wholeheartedly with the recommendations
which are being made by the royal
commission. Do we think it goes far
enough? Not at this point.”
And of course, like his peers at the
various other peak bodies, Garcia thinks
the way we fund the sector must change.
Many of his members are struggling and
making losses, he says.
According to CHA, one way to address
some of the imbalances is for those
Australians who can afford it to pay more.
Under their proposed model, means
testing will take into account the full value
of a person’s home, and to achieve this
CHA wants the interest rate for the current
Pension Loans Scheme, which allows
people to take out loans against the value
of their homes, reduced.
“I think the royal commission and the
sector knows that the sort of investment
that’s required into the aged care sector
is so significant that even Catholic Health
Australia admits that there simply isn’t
enough tax payer money to fund it, and
that you will need to find alternative
sources of funds to properly fund it,”
Garcia says.
“And unless the public very clearly
indicate to the government that this
is a priority for them … that requires
the government to seriously look at
investing in aged care, then I worry it’s
going to be ignored. And I worry that
the sector will continue to operate in an
underfunded way.”
Catholic Health members will hope
that having someone so familiar with
the intricacies and machinations of the
government and its vast bureaucracy will
be best placed to advocate on their behalf.
What they certainly have is someone who
will bring the best teachings of the Catholic
Church into practice.
“I would like to see, at the very
least in the next two years before the
federal election, some pretty significant
commitments in the electoral platforms
of the government and the Labor party
in aged care.
“And I want to see aged care continually
talked about in the public discourse as an
issue that needs to be resolved.
“We want to bring the most excluded
people to the centre of our world,” he says.
“With ageism today, the public really
doesn’t value elderly people in the way
that they tend to value younger people.
We want to bring them to the centre.” ■
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