One year into Support at Home, Australian aged care isn’t just adjusting to a new funding model. The system is shifting in three directions at once: more people want to remain at home, care is becoming more complex, and older Australians have explicit rights to choice, dignity, and control.

Together, these shifts demand more than mere compliance with new rules. They demand leadership.

The Hon. John Ajaka, Chairman of My Guardian, will challenge aged care leaders to look beyond the immediate pressures of implementation and ask a bigger strategic question: what kind of aged care system are we actually trying to build?

In challenging times, organisations risk becoming consumed by the urgent funding changes, workforce pressures, and operational complexity, while losing sight of why reform is happening in the first place.

The new rights-based framework is an opportunity to reset that focus. An older person receiving care is not simply a consumer of services or a clinical case; they are a person with a history, culture, and ambitions. Their right to have a say in how they live must be reflected in the culture of every organisation and in daily care decisions, not just in policy documents.

That requires a different kind of leadership: Leadership that turns regulation into culture rather than bureaucracy; Strategy that manages complexity without losing the human connection; Organisations prepared to empower staff to do what is right for the individual, even when there is no box to tick.

Drawing on practical frontline experience from Support at Home, John will explore the shift from care delivered to people, to care designed around them, and why the next stage of reform cannot be achieved by systems alone.

One year in, the question is no longer whether aged care can adapt to change. It is whether we, collectively as an industry, have the leadership and courage to shape what comes next.