Don’t expect the ‘heat in the retirement village kitchen’ to die down in NSW. During a visit to the Calvary Muswellbrook Retirement Community, the Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation said the sector would require an ‘extraordinary shake up’ to combat the problems that currently exist, before the number of residents buying into villages jumps.
“Right now, in NSW we have 55,000 residents in retirement villages across the state, that number will explode by 2025 to more than 325,000,” he said.
“We’ve all seen some horror stories about the treatment of our retirees and older Australians at the hands of big retirement village operators, so what we’ve done is an individual enquiry to make their lives better and fairer.”
With six of the 17 recommendations from Kathryn Greiner’s report into the sector passed last week, Mr Kean says these changes need to be made as quickly as possible and be seen and not just heard.
“We need to get this right, we need to make sure the public has confidence that when they move into a retirement village, they’re going to get a fair go,” he said.
Strong words – and a sense of what is to come for village operators.
