The Aged Care Guild’s CEO, Cameron O’Reilly, delivered a major Op-ed in The Australian this week directed at the recent federal budget cuts which he tallied up to $1.7 billion. He said the consequences could take years to remedy and have far reaching impacts on older Australians across the health system.

“… too often discussion on ageing is couched in terms of costs rather than benefits. A recent study by Deloitte Access Economics for the Aged Care Guild found that aged care generated $17.6 billion in economic benefit to the Australian economy”. 

With 352,000 Australians employed in the sector, “its growth helped keep employment strong as the mining boom ended, the Reserve Bank has noted”.

He quoted that collective profits for the sector “amounted to a little over $700 million annually”.