• Business Council of Australia

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05 January 2012Effective and sustainable social and healthcare systems are fundamental to achieving social prosperity and maintaining our quality of life. Yet this research, which extends the analysis of the Intergenerational Reports prepared for the Commonwealth Treasury, shows that all levels of government will face unsustainable fiscal pressures as the population ages and demand for healthcare and support services rises steeply. Without fundamental reform or unacceptably high rates of tax, those systems will increasingly fail to deliver the access and quality of care Australians expect. Major reviews over the past decade have documented the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of these systems but as a community we are not yet committed to the long-term structural changes needed to address them. In this paper, the Business Council of Australia sets out its response to the Productivity Commission’s Final Inquiry Report on aged care services, Caring for Older Australians. The authors strongly endorse the need for change and the commission’s recommendations, and call upon both government and Opposition parties to commit to a long-term plan for fundamental reform. The authors also identify what they see as the key implementation risks and make recommendations about how these might be managed.