Grey Power Wellington member, Alastair Duncan questions decisions being made by the Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group.
As illustrated by the current publicity about challenges seniors and families face in recovering their investment in retirement village housing, the aged care industry is big business.
The ‘care’ side of the residential aged care industry is corporate business reliant on public funding. Just before Christmas 2025, the Government announced a new body set up to advise on the funding model needed to support aged care services.
Titled, Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group, objectives include sustainable aged care services across the country and ensuring sufficient care provision to meet varying levels of care, service delivery and an adequate workforce.
On a positive note, the terms of reference acknowledge the existence of past reviews, and an outdated funding model which does not support providers to sustain or invest in new services. But there the positivity appears to end!
Referenced by some as being ‘cross party’, the group is headed by former Labour leader, and Health Minister, David Cunliffe. Its recommendations to the Minister of Health were due at the end of May, 2026.
When the Government first signalled setting up the group, unsurprisingly, the Aged Care Association, the peak provider and employer body, welcomed its formation but there remain important questions around it’s make up.
The group’s membership is drawn from businesses and individuals who, directly or indirectly, are already financially involved in the current care and funding model.
They include senior executives from corporate providers, Radius and Oceania, both listed on the stock exchange.
Only the Christian Council of Social Services might be said to offer some alternative voice although it members, too, are direct beneficiaries of the current funding model which see wages for carers and nurses almost exclusively funded by taxpayer dollars.
Some might see the industry as being asked to write the rules about its own funding!
For years successive Grey Power leaders have questioned successive governments which have focused on reports rather than action. Wellington Grey Power Association was keen to know more.
So, on April 17 this year using the Official Information Act, the association asked the Ministry of Health what criteria had been used to establish the advisory group. The rule with the OIA is that it should respond as soon as possible. The Ministry didn’t reply until May 15.
Questions asked of the Ministry included who was, and who was not considered for group membership. We also asked what was the budget and what was the preliminary advice from the Ministry on the issue.
The Ministry told us there had been 12 nominees but it did not name them.
Was Mr Cunliffe, (a former Labour Party leader and Minister of Health) included for balance? We do not know. Mr Cunliffe did not respond to repeated requests to speak with us.
We know that Grey Power was excluded. So, too, were the NZ Nurses Organisation and the carers union, E tu, which represent the interests of the workforce.
It is unclear whether any residents’ groups were approached despite the terms of reference explicitly including how the cost of care could be ‘reasonably shared between those receiving care and the Government.’
So, what does this group cost? We know group members receive $800 a day and the chair receives $1200 a day (published in the terms of reference).
The Ministry simply said the group was financed within the existing budgets.
Though the terms of reference appear hopeful they ignore the elephant in the room.
Last year’s ‘bomb shell’ overnight cancelling of pay equity claims for tens of thousands of nurses and carers rocked the sector.
This has led to an increase in staffing pressures already reliant on a low paid, largely ageing domestic migrant workforce.
Pay equity is likely to be one of the key influences in the forthcoming general election so it’s notable that the advisory group terms of reference specifically exclude the group offering advice on workforce requirements with ‘Budget advice’ specifically excluded.
So why was the workforce excluded? The Ministry says it is taking a ‘big picture focus…at system level’.
It also says, in the next stage of work, following the Advisory Group’s recommendations, it will consider how the funding model can support a sustainable and effective workforce.
Carer and E tu union delegate, Tamara Baddeley is one of thousands of carers who warned that the cancelling would have flow on effects in the workplace – unhappy staff, recruitment challenges and high staff turnover.
Like Grey Power, the voice of the carer, those closest to residents, was silenced. We now await the report which is due in July this year.
