Retirement Living Council's hard yards in SA Budget. QLD the next hope

Daniel Gannon, Executive Director of the Retirement Living Council (RLC), is the retirement living sector’s everywhere man, advocating aggressively at a state level. 

But seniors’ accommodation is not scoring in SA. Daniel, pictured sparing with South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, had hoped the SA Budget last Thursday would be helpful to retirement living operators. 

“The RLC has put some practical and useful requests to the State Government, including minimum land allocations for retirement villages in greenfield settings and targets in the same way governments prioritise social and affordable housing,” Daniel said.  

“These are levers the government can pull to address its two biggest priorities – health and housing.” 

However, the SA Budget was bare. Nothing was said to aid the retirement living sector. 

“While there is a celebrated focus on first homebuyers, it’s radio silence on affordable housing options for older South Australians,” Daniel said after the Budget was delivered. 

Hospital bed crisis 

Daniel said SA Treasurer Stephen Mulligan himself acknowledged that more than 100 South Australians are stranded in hospital beds every day due to a lack of aged care and disability care places.  

“This is where retirement villages can help do some of the heavy lifting for government given after just nine months living in a retirement village, older South Australians are 20% less likely to require hospitalisation.  

“People who live in a retirement village have better access to onsite health and wellbeing services that are shown to reduce interactions with GPs, leading to 14,000 avoided hospitalisations around the country every year.” 

Next is QLD 

The Queensland Budget is today and Premier Steven Mills said last month that the retirement living industry has an important role to play in providing more housing supply across Queensland. 

NSW, Victoria and WA Budgets have all passed, without a murmur of those two words: “retirement living”.  

Browse villages.com.au for the latest on Seniors Living including availability.   

Listen and learn; Christopher Pyne talks politics with Simon Miller at LEADERS SUMMIT 2024