Inefficient to fund aged care through superannuation: Retirement review chairman brisbanetimes.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from brisbanetimes.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Australia’s aged care system will require at least $36bn each year if the Morrison government adopts the royal commission’s cheapest recommendations to address neglect and abuse and realise a right of care for older Australians, economists have calculated. The roughly $9bn per year additional cash will be required to fund tens of thousands of extra home care packages, and the cost of increasing staff qualifications, ratios and pay across home.
Cost of Australia s aged care system to soar to $36bn a year if cheapest royal commission reforms adopted msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Last modified on Mon 1 Mar 2021 00.33 EST
Elderly Australians have suffered declining quality of aged care due to decreasing funding levels as successive governments provided the struggling sector the “bare minimum”, the aged care royal commission has found.
On Monday the final report of the royal commission was released, signalling that a massive investment will be required to improve care after two decades of efficiency dividends cut more than $9.8bn from the annual aged care budget.
Food and nutrition, dementia care, the use of restrictive practices, and palliative care have been highlighted for urgent attention in a damning report that makes more than 140 recommendations to fix a sector that the commission’s interim report said “diminishes Australia as a nation”.
Announcing an immediate injection of $452 million in funding for the sector, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he did not call the royal commission two years ago to then ignore it.
“I was serious when I asked [for] it because I wanted to know, they’ve told me, and now I’m committed to dealing with the issues that are raised in this report together with my government,” he said.
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“It’ll test my government, it’ll test the budget, it’ll test the Parliament, it’ll test the way in which we are prepared to deal with this issue, as a once in a generation opportunity to actually change it for new generation.”