Introduction
Australia is lucky to have a publicly funded aged care system. Successive Australian governments have historically subsidised Residential Aged Care since 1963, followed by Community Aged Care, and Home and Community Care programmes in the 1990s and the Aged Care Act 1997. Since the Aged Care Act, programmes and policies supporting residential and home-based aged care services have been strategically implemented (Inacio et al., 2021). However, if we don’t address the unintended consequences of the transition to the reforms, we risk overwhelming the very systems we seek to sustain. While the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025—which aims to provide updates to the Aged Care (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2024—aims to support transitional arrangements and ensure continuity for older people and providers, it does not go far enough to protect those most vulnerable during this period of reform – CALD older people.
