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Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) 2021

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) 2021

## What it does
This bill overhauls how aged care is regulated and funded following the Royal Commission inquiry into aged care. It creates stricter rules around worker screening and conduct, sets up a new independent body to set aged care prices, requires aged care homes to better report problems, and tightens rules on how providers can use residents' money.

## Why it matters
Aged care residents and their families will see stronger protections against neglect and misconduct, while the industry gets clearer standards on what's acceptable. Better oversight and pricing transparency should also help prevent the financial exploitation that the Royal Commission found was common.

## Key details

- **Worker screening**: Aged care workers and managers must now pass stronger background checks, with powers to ban unsuitable people from the sector permanently.

- **New pricing authority**: An independent body will set standard prices for aged care, replacing the old system and aiming to stop unfair charging of residents.

- **Incident reporting**: Aged care homes must report more problems to regulators faster, and the Quality and Safety Commission gets stronger powers to investigate and take action.

- **Code of conduct**: Workers must follow a binding code of conduct with real penalties for breaches, including potential bans from aged care work.

Official Description

Amends: the Aged Care Act 1997 and Aged Care (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997 to enable the introduction of the Australian National Aged Care Classification to replace the Aged Care Funding Instrument as the residential aged care subsidy calculation model from 1 October 2022; the Aged Care Act 1997 and Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 to: provide for nationally consistent pre-employment screening for aged care workers of approved providers to replace existing police checking obligations; enable the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner to make and enforce a code of conduct that will apply to approved providers and their workers, including governing persons; extend the Serious Incident Response Scheme to home and flexible care delivered in a home or community care setting from 1 July 2022; introduce new governance responsibilities for approved providers of Commonwealth-funded aged care; enable the secretary or commissioner to request information or documents from a provider or borrower relating to the use of a loan made with a refundable deposit or accommodation bond and create an offence for a borrower who does not comply with this request; and extend the period of liability for the existing offences for the misuse of refundable accommodation deposits prior to an insolvency event for both providers and key personnel of providers; five Acts to enable information sharing between certain Commonwealth bodies; the National Health Reform Act 2011 and Aged Care Act 1997 to expand the functions of a renamed Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority and establish new governance arrangements and appointments processes; and the National Health Reform Act 2011 , Aged Care Act 1997 and Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 to enable the use and disclosure of information required for the authority to perform its new functions.

Committee Referrals

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills; Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

1 Sept 2021

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Last checked by Crossbench

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