Basic funeral dead and buried
26 September 2019
It’s the quick and the dead if you want a regulated basic funeral. From 1 February 2020, the basic funeral will be defunct replaced with providers’ cheapest options.
Aged Care Royal Commission six month extension
26 September 2019
A six month extension pushes the Final Report due date to 12 November 2020. Also Tony Pagone QC is announced as the third Commissioner.
LETTERS from readers, October 2019
26 September 2019
Email voice@cpsa.org.au , if you would like to write to CPSA to have your views and comments published online and in the monthly print version of THE VOICE, CPSA’s newsletter.
0% Term Deposits?
23 August 2019
Getting no interest or, even worse, paying the bank interest over your own savings, is that something retirees and intending retirees are now countenancing or is there an alternative?
Bupa Eden’s 11th hour escape
23 August 2019
The goings-on at Bupa's nursing home in Eden weren't as dramatic as the wholesale abandonment of frail elderly residents at the Earle Haven nursing home on the Gold Coast, but it demonstrated once again that the new-broom Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is an impotent and inadequate defender of the health and wellbeing of nursing home residents. Bupa and the Commission played a game of chicken: Bupa won.
Nursing homes are understaffed period
23 August 2019
Guest contributor, Dr Michael Wynne of the unfunded, grass roots advocacy organisation Aged Care Crisis explains why increasing staffing levels in nursing home is a prerequisite, not the be-al-and-end-all, of quality care in Australia's nursing homes.
Health funding or health profiteering crisis?
23 August 2019
Public debate on health centres on private health insurance and how unaffordable it has become and how inadequate. CPSA is an unlikely defender of private health insurance funds, but the funds are only secondary culprits, enablers of the primary culprits.
Is the Pharmacy Guild protecting you or itself?
23 August 2019
Pharmacies are among the best protected small businesses in Australia. The Pharmacy Guild wants you to believe that that is for your own good. But is it?
Poverty waits for no one, not even inquisitive senators
23 August 2019
It may be the best our federal Parliament can do right now, but people on Newstart deserve better than a Senate inquiry which is to report sometime next year.
Who let public housing down?
23 August 2019
OVER the last decade State and Territory Governments have allowed for over 20,000 public housing dwellings to be lost. In order to pick up the slack, non-profit providers have increased the amount of homes they operate but it is not keeping pace with demand.
Downsizing? Here’s how to dodge dodgy apartment buildings
23 August 2019
Downsizing into an apartment may be an attractive idea, but how do you find an apartment building without significant defects? A few tips to avoid the worst disasters.
LETTERS from readers, September 2019
23 August 2019
Email voice@cpsa.org.au , if you would like to write to CPSA to have your views and comments published online and in the monthly print version of THE VOICE, CPSA’s newsletter.
Rogue Bupa Eden nursing home in 11th hour escape
19 August 2019
Who needs action movies, when Australian residential aged care offers cliff hangers like this: Bupa is reaccredited hours before it was to lose its accreditation!
Bupa Eden nursing home goes rogue
16 August 2019
The official accreditation of the Bupa Eden nursing home expires on 16 August 2019, with Bupa Eden set to continue operations without regulatory oversight.
Memo to Craig Kelly MP: Pensioner family home is already asset tested
24 July 2019
It seems to be a little known fact, but the family home is already included in pension means testing.
Earle Haven and Bupa Eden: Australia’s first two rogue nursing homes
22 July 2019
No clearer case and example of profit-over-people was on display in Queensland this July, where 70 nursing home residents were simply abandoned in their beds and wheelchairs over a commercial dispute between a principal and subcontractor. But New South Wales is not far behind. Bupa Australia may also be planning an abandonment of frail older people in its Eden 'facility' on 16 August 2019.
How deeming rates really work: who benefits the most and who benefits the least
22 July 2019
Deeming rates are not as simple as many think and many who think they are affected are not. Has the time come to can deeming rates altogether?
Warning, Danger, Flashing Lights: avoid DomaCom equity release!
22 July 2019
Home equity release is a polite term for hocking your house. Now there's a new way of paying home equity release providers even more for the privilege of taking over your house before you have died.
Australia’s first Ageing and Disability Commissioner
22 July 2019
NSW is the first jurisdiction in which an Office of Ageing and Disability Commissioner has been established. Other states and territories would do well to follow NSW’s lead.
Will new rules keep energy retailers in line?
22 July 2019
Energy companies, once the stodgiest but most reliable companies in Australia, joined the ranks of corporate spivs and rip-off merchants some years ago. Will the latest initiative by the ACCC reign them in?