Aged care royal commission identifies old problems, calls for new solutions

The aged care royal commission final report, lost amid the controversies in Canberra this week, confirms pretty much everything that the unions representing aged care workers have been telling us for years —  in fact for decades — about the aged care workforce.

And as the commissioners explain, when they have been listened to, the resulting policy responses have been ineffective.

Whether the Morrison government’s response will be any more effective remains to be seen, but the radical nature of the workforce proposals compared to the status quo suggests an extraordinary and expensive challenge. Why is staffing so important? “The evidence is clear that the quality of care and the quality of jobs in aged care are inextricably linked.”