- The removal of 18 hour gardening and 52 hour cleaning caps so that people can choose and control how their services are delivered to keep them at home for as long as they are able.
- Increasing visibility of the role of financial hardship protections to ensure aged care fees won't send someone into poverty.
- Introducing a new Statement of Rights that corrects the current power imbalance between participants and providers, will be enforceable on providers and respected by Government officials such as assessors, My Aged Care and Complaints officers
- A guaranteed ability for residents in nursing homes to nominate someone who can always visit them, even during an infectious disease outbreak.
- Ensuring that the aged care participants voice and views is the centre of all decisions, even when they nominate someone to support them in understanding and expressing those views.
- Delivering an independent Complaints Commissioner, with a requirement for a clear determination/outcome of the complaint, with new ways complaints can be resolved such as mediation, conciliation and restorative outcomes, each with a clear timeline on how long each stage of the complaint handling process will take.
- Ensuring that more decisions will have clear timelines and will be available for reconsideration and reviewable by the Australian Review Tribunal or the Australian Ombudsman.
- Removing the ability for a provider to force prospective residents to agree to pay for a higher everyday living fees (currently called additional services) as a condition of securing a bed, sometimes paying for services they never could use.
- Broadening the powers of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to monitor and take a range of actions when a provider does the wrong thing, including civil penalties if a provider is found guilty in a court of not upholding the rights of older people.
- Introducing a 'graduated' assessment of the new Quality Standards, so you'll know the difference between a technical minor non-conformance outcome because a provider didn't have the right paperwork, vs a serious non-conformance outcome that puts people's safety at risk.
- Laying the foundation so that in 2027 more workers / allied health professionals who support older Australians can choose to become an aged care provider (e.g. sole traders), and a participant can choose multiple providers, so self-managing participants can cut out the middleman and maximise the hours of care they receive.
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