Aged care and disability: ‘opulence’ for the owners, at our expense
In 2021, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Royal Commission shone a harsh light on the sickening and dangerous priorities of the business interests that control the aged-care sector. It exposed that billions of government dollars were flowing into an increasingly privatised industry, fuelling enormous wealth for the operators, while workers copped rock-bottom wages and old folks were locked in their rooms in squalor due to lack of staff.
One of the aged-care companies at the centre of media attention in the years that followed was Heritage Care, which operated nine for-profit aged-care homes. Heritage Care and its owners became infamous in 2020, after 38 people died of COVID-19 after a major infection control breach at its Epping Gardens aged-care facility in Melbourne.
In the wake of this disaster, family members talked of short staffing leaving residents unwashed, unfed and undressed. The Age revealed that another of the company’s facilities, in the Sydney suburb of Botany, had failed all eight minimum standards in an audit by the regulator in 2019. Management of nutrition, hydration, skin injuries, falls and pain was inadequate, the food was bad, and staff numbers had been cut, leaving residents uncared for. Nonetheless, the regulator allowed the facility to keep operating.
Much of the government money that was never spent on staffing or care was instead siphoned off to finance the luxury lifestyle of Peter Arvanitis, one of the two co-owners of Heritage Care, and wife Areti Arvanitis. In October last year, the Australian Financial Review gushed over the Toorak residence of these two aged-care industry profiteers:
“From a French chandelier sourced from Hollywood producer Aaron Spelling’s Los Angeles home, to the master bedroom’s plum-red silk carpet floors – the aesthetic on display throughout Estia Healthcare founder Peter Arvanitis and his wife Areti’s Toorak mansion is nothing short of unbridled opulence.
“The entrance hall alone features brass doors, marble floors, eight-metre-high ceilings, a hand-blown glass dome with hand-painted roses and a sweeping curved staircase…
“The five-bedroom home comprises 2000 square metres of sumptuous interiors across three levels. Along with six bathrooms, there’s a wellness room, a 10-car garage, cinema and a secretly accessed wood-panelled bar inspired by London’s private clubs.”
Government money and pathetically weak regulation lead to low wages for the workers, unspeakable conditions for many of those who rely on the sector for care—and Toorak mansions for the owners.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is designed on similar lines to the profit-driven childcare and aged-care sectors. A funnel of government money flows to private operators, with light-touch neoliberal “regulation” putting no constraint on private enrichment.
Unsurprisingly, the NDIS is starting to attract similar headlines to the well-documented capitalist-made disaster zones of child care and aged care.
Even Murdoch’s tabloids reported last year on the NDIS being transformed into “an ATM for the mega-rich”. Australian retail boss Brett Blundy seems typical of these new operators. Blundy is the 38th-richest person in the country, according the annual Australian Financial Review Rich List, with an estimated wealth of $3.95 billion. Having made his pile in retail, Blundy has recently bought into Independent Living Specialists, which supplies aids such as modified furniture and mobility scooters to NDIS customers.
Sixty-three of the 67 ratings for Independent Living Specialists on the “trustpilot” website are one star, with feedback to match: “Negative star—absolute worst experience”; “Bad service, greed-driven, overpriced products”; “This company should be shut down”; “Shameful company. Dishonest. Should be banned from using NDIS logo”; “PREY ON SICK AND INJURED—AVOID”.
While people needing mobility aids for family members put up with endless delays and poor products, Blundy buys and sells luxury super-yachts with reported price tags of around a quarter of a billion dollars. It’s business as usual in Australia’s grotesque, profit-driven care sector.
