What a year it’s been!
2024 was a big year for National Seniors. Here’s what we have been doing for you and how you can help make 2025 bigger.
Kathryn Greiner joins NSA board
Kathryn Greiner AO has joined the National Seniors Australia (NSA) Board of Directors.
Her appointment was announced by NSA chair Ross Glossop, who said, “Ms Greiner brings to the board distinguished experience in strategic leadership, government relations and advocacy gained throughout an esteemed career in public and private companies, government bodies and non-profit organisations.
“This experience combined with a deep desire to help NSA defend, protect and promote older Australians sees Ms Greiner not only eminently qualified to join the board but entirely suited.”
For more information, read our media release.
With Christmas almost here, we want to thank our readers for their support throughout the year.
A lot has happened, and we couldn’t do it without your support. Whether you are an NSA member, campaign supporter, or a Connect subscriber, you keep the lights on and the fire burning, so thank you.
Here is a wrap-up of the year that was and an appeal to help us be bigger and better next year.
Cost of living has been a perennial topic with the conduct of supermarkets the first horse out of the gate in January. NSA made cost of living a feature of our 2024 Federal Budget submission and we were pleased that three of our cost-of-living policy recommendations were taken up in the 2024 Budget!
Health was another big issue in 2024 with concerns about long term impacts of Covid-19 and the cost of private health (a major NSA research report) just two of the many issues we highlighted throughout the year. The issue of life expectancy hit the news in 2024, with average life expectancy continuing its slow decline post pandemic. We rounded out the year, highlighting claims of overcharging by some specialists, reinforcing our call for a full Productivity Commission review of private health.
NSA also had a big focus on banking in Connect in 2024. Our Keep Cash campaign kicked off, highlighting the importance of cash transactions; the dangers of digital outages on people’s ability to make transactions; the problem with card payment surcharges and the need for face-to-face banking services.
At the end of 2024, we were thrilled that the Federal Government was seeking to mandate that some businesses would be required to continue to offer cash as a transaction method and was also mulling a banking levy to ensure face-to-face banking services continue. Two emerging wins for NSA!
Energy has also been a keen focus. NSA pushed back on proposals to accelerate the roll out of smart meters without adequate consumer protections for complicated and costly electricity tariffs. While the roll out seems likely to proceed, we will continue the fight against unfair energy billing in 2025.
We continued to call for changes to pension rules to Let Pensioners Work and for a targeted pensioner concession card to provide additional support to those in need.
One of the biggest issues covered this year has been reform of aged care. NSA shared with readers the recommendations of the Aged Care Taskforce putting forward our view on what should be the focus of the funding reform, which included a demand for greater transparency.
This was an issue you told us was critical to any moves to increase consumer contributions. We called out the blow out of the home care wait list as a clear and present danger that must be fixed now, not in two years’ time. But we also acknowledged the importance of the historic pay increase for aged care workers and the many changes to the new Aged Care Act to improve quality and safety.
2024 has also been a year in which the housing crisis has become further entrenched. Mirroring the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis has abated little. We used Connect to highlight the need for more seniors friendly housing and to further our calls for retirement village reforms to protect older people.
We also celebrated the efforts of the winner of our inaugural Everald Compton Community Champion Medal as just one of the many examples of seniors making invaluable contributions to the Australian community.
In reporting on these developments, we placed seniors (just like you) at the centre of our efforts, highlighting the good (pension boost), the bad (backward consumer protections), and the plain weird (gorilla theft, wombat speed). We hope you have enjoyed our mix of serious, informative and interesting articles.
As Christmas approaches, why not give us a present and join NSA or donate to one of our campaigns so we can make 2025 even better!
