User Profile

Chris
Baynes

Is this the canary in the coal mine for retirement village operators? The future when care crosses independent living

On 18 February, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission quietly released an ‘Exposure Draft’ for the Aged Care Financial and Prudential Standards 2025. In it the Federal Government crossed the line into retirement villages. See the wording...

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Chris Baynes

8 hours ago

Opinion

Good news for our sector and older Australians – quality executives leading advocacy at the right time

Looking forward, the retirement living sector is set for both great times and very dangerous times. Public opinion and demand for our products will be strong, but we will also be susceptible to bad news – and there will be bad news. Regular...

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Chris Baynes

25 Feb 2025

Opinion

Are you strategically prepared for the next 5 years given the macro changes rushing towards us?

I have been reporting on the retirement living, home care and residential aged care sectors for 20 years. The future has never been as uncertain as today. With the first wave of Baby Boomers turning 80 this year, demand for ageing service will jump...

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Chris Baynes

18 Feb 2025

Opinion

Village operators will need home tech and possibly private 5G sooner than they think

Last week James Wiltshire and I were invited by the leadership of the big Not for Profit operator Warrigal, spread across the Illawarra and ACT, to strategically discuss the future of retirement villages. We emphasized that their future will require...

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Chris Baynes

11 Feb 2025

Opinion

Village operators on alert

The excerpt above from an article that caught my eye on Saturday is telling. There is still a large amount of work required to explain the value proposition, contracts and costs of moving into a retirement village. The writer, retired Professor Ross...

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Ian Horswill

03 Feb 2025

News & Headlines

Another week, another alarm for village operators and residents

We will be investigating solutions at our LEADERS SUMMIT 18 & 19 March in Sydney, plus presenting how Denmark overcame this problem. There are good lessons to be learnt. Register here

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Chris Baynes

03 Feb 2025

Opinion

Village operators: beware the media. Ignore the Code of Conduct at your peril - Sign up today

In this issue of The Weekly SOURCE we discuss how Lifestyle Communities lost $950 million in value in three months, thanks to three media reports on ABC TV. With village residents now significantly older, media alarm bells should be ringing. Our...

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Chris Baynes

28 Jan 2025

Opinion

Today, with 78-year-old President Trump in America and 30-something Adrian Puljich and Patrick Abolakian in Australia, each stand out – but we are in better hands

What a day. The US and the world looks to Trump to make America (and the world?) great with his inauguration and his deportation of immigrants. Here in Australia’s seniors living sector, we have two sons of immigrants leading the way to support...

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Chris Baynes

21 Jan 2025

Opinion

Will 2025 be the year the village sector realises it is no longer independent living?

Victoria has just released its new retirement village regulations, including for the first time acknowledgement of home care as a village service – operators beware.

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Chris Baynes

16 Dec 2024

Government Policy

RLC facts win the day in ABC 7.30 driven Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) review of retirement villages

Last Wednesday (10 December), the meeting of COAG was swayed that the States should stay responsible for retirement villages and new Federal regulations were not required.

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Chris Baynes

16 Dec 2024

Opinion

Older, cashed up and ambitious

It looks like the leaders of the retirement village sector of the Noughties are reforming the band, with the formal return of Peter Inge (pictured in 2006) back in the village sector as a serious portfolio builder. Pre the GFC only the private...

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Chris Baynes

10 Dec 2024

Development

Uniting NSW.ACT Westmead village expands with 153 ILUs in Stage 2

Stage 2 of Park Meadows by Uniting NSW. ACT in Westmead, 27km west of the Sydney CBD, has officially commenced, marked by a sod turning event at the site recently. The new village, set for completion in 2027, includes 153 independent living units, an...

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FIVE GOOD FRIENDS: Day One digital home care strategy rewarded

It took two digital natives foreign to home care to create the sector’s first human digital solution that has now delivered 1.7 million hours of direct care from a standing start eight years ago. When Nathan Betteridge and Simon Lockyer...

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Chris Baynes

06 Dec 2024