Program overview
Aged Care Futures: People, Purpose and Progress
The conference theme highlights where the sector is heading and what providers need to focus on next. You will gain insights into workforce, quality care and the innovations shaping tomorrow’s services.
People
Centers on the workforce and empowering the next generation through strong career pathways and capability building. We will focus on attracting talent, growing skills and developing future leaders.
Purpose
Focuses on supporting aged care providers to deliver sustainable, high-quality services, ensuring safety and meaningful outcomes while adapting to funding changes and post-reform requirements.
Progress
Explore innovation, technology and new models of care, showing how providers can adapt, improve operations and remain resilient as the sector changes.
| Program at a glance | ||
|---|---|---|
Wednesday 3 June | Day 1 pre-event workshop and networking | ||
| 9am - 5pm | Registration open | |
10am - 4pm | Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Practices in Aged Care Workshop (OPTIONAL) Mandy-Lee Noble, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Professional Development Facilitator, Benchmarque Group
10am - 12pm:
12pm - 1pm: Lunch break
1pm - 2.30pm: ● Diversity
2.30pm - 3pm: Break
3pm - 4pm: ● Respectful engagement with First Nations Peoples
4pm: Workshop close | |
| Program at a glance | ||
|---|---|---|
Thursday 4 June | Day 2 conference and exhibition | ||
| 8am - 5pm | Registration open | |
9am - 9.15am | Welcome and Opening of Conference Liz Behjat, Director Government Relations, Ageing Australia | |
9.15am - 9.25am | Welcome to Country | |
9.25am - 9.55am | Ageing Australia CEO Address | |
9.55am - 10.10am | Ministerial Address | |
10.10am - 10.40am | People, Pay and Productivity: The Economics of Aged Care
Australia’s aged care reforms have changed rules, wages and expectations, but workforce pressure remains. This session uses economics to examine people, pay, productivity and work design, including practical ways technology and AI can reduce wasted time, support workers and strengthen care without replacing the human work at aged care’s centre.
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10.40am - 11.10am | Morning Tea and Networking | |
| 11.10am - 11.50am | Sector Panel: How is the Sector Tracking Under the New Aged Care Act?
This panel takes a candid look at implementation in practice - what’s delivering results, what challenges persist, and where efforts should be directed next. It offers a balanced discussion grounded in the sector’s current realities. | |
| 11.50am - 12.30pm | Leading with People, Purpose and Progress: The 10 Leadership Qualities Aged Care Needs Now
As aged care navigates significant reform, rising community expectations, workforce pressures and increasing complexity, leaders need more than technical expertise or positional authority. They need a broader set of capabilities that help them lead people with clarity, compassion and confidence.
This session explores the 10 Qs of leadership, a practical framework covering essential leadership qualities such as emotional intelligence, adaptability, strategic thinking, wellbeing, cultural awareness, generational awareness, digital confidence, moral courage and trust.
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| 12.30pm - 1pm | Beyond Compliance: Partnering for Quality and Trust Under the New Aged Care Act | |
1pm - 2pm | Lunch and Networking | |
| 2.05pm - 3.15pm | Interactive Workshop:
An interactive, discussion-led session bringing aged care and hospital perspectives together to examine discharge as one connected pathway. The session will commence with a panel discussion to help set the scene and explore key challenges from both perspectives, before moving into audience interaction through live polls and shared discussion. Together, the session will focus on where transitions break down and practical ways to improve coordination, flow and outcomes. | |
3.15pm - 3.45pm | Afternoon Tea and Networking | |
| 3.45pm - 4.25pm | Fireside Chat: | |
| 4.25pm - 4.55pm | Navigating the Next Phase of Aged Care Reform
This session will focus on aged care reform reflections and the value of collaboration and local relationships. | |
| 4.55pm - 5pm | Day Wrap Up and Closing | |
| 6.30pm - 7pm | Pre-dinner drinks | |
| 7pm - 11pm | Conference dinner | |
| Program at a glance | ||
|---|---|---|
Friday 5 June | Day 3 conference and exhibition | ||
| 8am - 5pm | Registration open | |
9am - 9.10am | Opening Remarks and Welcome Back | |
9.10am - 9.40am | When a Reporter Calls: Handling Media Heat with Confidence and Clarity
The aged care industry has never experienced as much media attention as it is now and this trend will likely continue for the next few years as the baby boomers work their way through the system. For the first time in history, the sector is catering to demanding customers who are technologically savvy and not afraid to contact the media if they feel aggrieved. This session will give a behind-the-scenes look inside a modern newsroom so people can understand the media machines reporters work for and offer some tips on what to do, and what not to do, if you are contacted by a journalist.
Key takeaways:
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9.40am - 10.10am | Fireside Chat:
This session covers Basil’s transition from media to politics, decision-making under scrutiny, and how communication shapes public trust. Opens the door to light, engaging questions early. | |
10.10am - 10.40am | Understanding and Adapting to Funding Changes Under the New Aged Care Act | |
10.40am - 11.10am | Morning Tea and Networking | |
11.10am - 11.40am | Future-Ready Workforce: Innovations in Aged Care Training and Measurable Impact | |
11.40am - 12.10pm | Case Study: Silverchain's AI Pilot | |
12.10pm - 12.40pm | Palliative Care Strategy | |
12.40pm - 1.40pm | Lunch and Networking | |
1.45pm - 2.25pm | Panel Discussion: Mookie Tantiprasut, Customer and Brand Director, Juniper Aged Care
This session explores the latest ageing demographic trends in Western Australia and what they mean for providers over the next five years. Drawing on insights from The Voice of Older Western Australians White Paper 2025 and the Ageing Australia: Community Expectations Report, it connects population data with lived experience and community expectations. It will link these insights to practical implications for service demand, workforce, funding, and models of care, then look ahead to what aged care could realistically look like by 2030.
The Voice of Older Western Australians white paper: Research & Art - Juniper Ageing in Australia Community Expectations Report 2026: Research and insights | Ageing Australia | |
2.25pm - 3.25pm | Fixing the Workforce System: From Issues to Action
We Already Know the Challenges. Now What? The aged care sector has spent years discussing workforce shortages, attraction, retention, and sustainability.
This session starts where those conversations usually end. And the key question is: what’s preventing progress? Through live polling and facilitated discussion, providers will identify the workforce challenges having the greatest impact, explore what barriers are preventing progress, and prioritise the actions needed to move the sector forward. New ideas will also be shared.
Together, we will identify:
This is not just a discussion about workforce challenges. It’s a conversation about making change happen. Be prepared to contribute, challenge thinking and help shape future workforce priorities. | |
3.25pm - 3.55pm | Afternoon Tea and Networking | |
3.55pm - 4.25pm | Key Learnings and Takeaways - Rethinking the Discharge Pathway in WA Dr Deepan Krishnasivam, Director of Medical Services State Health Operations Centre, Department of Health A concise recap of the previous day’s workshop, highlighting key insights from aged care and hospital perspectives. The session will cover where discharge pathways are breaking down, what is working, and practical actions to improve coordination, flow and outcomes. Includes a snapshot of audience poll results and clear, actionable takeaways for providers. | |
4.25pm - 4.55pm | Closing Keynote: Orchids Don’t Flower Every Day: Finding Hope, Humanity and Resilience in the Hardest Places
At the close of the conference, in a sector carrying extraordinary emotional weight — when the exhaustion is real, the masks are slipping and the conversations become honest — Amy Gildea delivers a keynote that is a raw, magnetic and deeply human exploration of where resilience, meaning and hope still live.
Drawing on two decades leading humanitarian and health responses across natural disasters, conflict zones and complex global crises, Amy Gildea brings audiences into the deeply personal stories that shaped her leadership, her worldview, and ultimately her forthcoming book Orchids Don’t Flower Every Day.
With honesty, humour and magnetic energy, Amy explores what it means to lead — and remain human — in industries where burnout has become normalised and where people are often expected to carry impossible emotional loads while continuing to perform. Through powerful lived experiences from humanitarian deployments, executive leadership and healthcare, she reframes resilience not as endless endurance, but as our capacity to reconnect with purpose, perspective and each other.
This is not a keynote about pretending everything is fine. It is an electric conversation about humanity. About grief, absurdity, hope, survival and the moments that crack us open enough to become better leaders, colleagues and human beings. It is about learning how to find light in difficult places. How to empower people without losing ourselves. How to lead differently in moments that test us. And how the ageing sector — perhaps more than any other — holds profound lessons about dignity, connection, grief, courage and what truly matters.
Audiences will leave energised, emotionally moved and deeply inspired — with practical reflections they can carry into their teams, leadership and lives long after the conference ends.
Expect laughter. Expect truth. Expect the kind of conversation people continue over drinks long after the keynote finishes. | |
4.55pm - 5pm | Conference Close | |
5pm - 6pm | Networking Hour | |
Disclaimer: Please note that this conference program is subject to revisions and updates. While every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, changes may
occur prior to the event. Attendees are encouraged to regularly check for updates on the conference website. Thank you for your understanding.