Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Minister for Mental Health and Ageing Mark Butler today met with local seniors at a fitness and leisure centre in Canberra in the lead up to a national conversation on how to promote opportunities for healthy and positive ageing.
The Gillard Labor Government is engaging in the national conversation with older Australians, their carers and families to help inform its response to the Productivity Commission Final Report, Caring for Older Australians.
In the future, older Australians will lead longer, healthier and more prosperous lives than previous generations.
It is essential we provide older Australians with care, support and encouragement to continue contributing to our community - whether in work, in retirement or in caring roles.
Older Australians deserve security, but they also deserve more choice and control over the way they live.
We also need to make sure financing arrangements are fair and sustainable, for the individual and for society as a whole.
The recommendations in the Commission's report will be considered as part of the Government's broader ageing agenda.
The Government will develop its response to the report's recommendations guided by four overarching principles:
* First, every older Australian has earned the right to be able to access quality care and support that is appropriate to their needs, when they need it.
* Secondly, older Australians deserve greater choice and control over their care arrangements than the system currently provides.
* Thirdly, funding arrangements for aged care need to be sustainable and fair, both for older Australians and for the broader community.
* And finally, older Australians deserve to receive quality care from an appropriately skilled workforce.
The Government recognises that Australia's ageing population presents enormous potential to provide them with greater choice and control over their lives, as well more opportunities than they've been afforded in the past.
The national conversation about aged care services, as part of a broader ageing agenda, will help us understand how to harness this potential.