Bill Shorten takes aim at profit-driven ‘private’ aged care

The former Labor leader Services Minister has lashed out at the Federal Government for providing a second-class aged care system and “failing its duty” to manage the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Appearing on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, Mr Shorten asked how privatised centres were able to “serve two masters” – profit and care – given the significant cost of properly caring for elderly people, particularly those living with dementia.

“This is the problem,” he said. “Looking after elderly people with diagnosis of dementia is not cheap. So, if we want to make a profit, and you want to look after people, then you create faultlines in the system.”

“COVID-19 right across Australian society has revealed things which have been glossed over. And if you’re a worker in the system, and they’re doing the hard and the tough work, they have to work at multiple centres just to make a living.”

Maybe Mr Shorten did not read the union backed research by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CITAR) which presented a significant number of large Not For Profit operators achieving large surpluses from the aged care system, or StewartBrown’s research that identifies the publicly listed operators have lower surpluses per bed than to the Top Quartile. The reality is a ‘business’ must make margins to reinvest. Break even doesn’t work.