This year we have undertaken survey work, held focus groups and an interactive webinar with COTA Australia supporters. Feedback from these engagements formed the basis of multiple submissions which have been finalised over the last 3 months.
You can access any of the publicly available submissions here.
- In partnership with the Older Persons Advocacy Network and 10 other older people and carer organisations, we released our Preliminary Key Issues Paper in response to the New Aged Care Act Exposure Draft, which was promptly followed by our Joint Submission paper. Our substantive joint submission highlighted many matters that we believe need to be addressed within the Act. We continue to advocate for these changes and believe that the passage of this Act through parliament must be an urgent priority for 2024.
- We submitted a letter to the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications – Communications Legislation Amendment (Prominence and Anti-Siphoning) Bill 2023. Our letter raised concerns that we have regarding the availability and access to free television which is relied on by older Australians for both information and entertainment, which includes sports coverage.
- In partnership with our energy advocates, we responded to the Australian Energy Regulator’s request for feedback on issues impacting the lives of consumers living in an embedded network, particularly older people living in multiple resident premises such as retirement villages, flats, apartments, and caravan parks.
- We made a submission to Treasury in response to the Discussion Paper on Retirement phase of superannuation.
- We made a submission to the Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices. Based on the feedback you gave us, our key message to the Senate Select Committee is “the amount paid at supermarket checkouts is a critical concern for many older households.” Many of our supporters told us that they had to make major lifestyle changes to their shopping budgets in order to eat more cheaply, such as buying more generic branded, processed and frozen food products rather than buying more nutritious foods such as eggs, cheese, fish and meat.
- We were a partner organisation to the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) submission on the “Better delivery of universal services” to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. The purpose of this submission was to address the relevancy of the Universal Service Obligation (or USO), which is a consumer protection measure that guarantees everyone in Australia has access to a standard fixed landline phone and the provision of public payphones by Telstra.
- We submitted to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee’s inquiry into issues related to menopause and perimenopause and the impact these symptoms had on workplace experiences based on focus group discussions. Our key message was to start by recognising that issues related to menopause and perimenopause are first and foremost about age and gender equity. Employers and businesses can help our economy be more productive by empowering older women to work for as long as they want, and by adopting policies that are menopause and perimenopause aware and sensitive.
- Finally, in the lead-up to the 2024-25 Federal Budget, we prepared and submitted our Pre-Budget submission to the Federal Government. This submission recommends actions that can be taken by Government to address ageism and close the retirement gap for older women, and improve health, housing and aged care outcomes for older Australians.
You can read any of our submissions that are publicly available by visiting our resources page here.
