To age with security and dignity is a right every older person deserves, and a responsibility society—especially the government—must not shirk.
I have been writing the column “Seeing the World Through Australia’s Eyes”, and it often makes me reflect: as a Hong Kong immigrant who has lived in Australia for more than 30 years, I am no longer the “Hong Kong person” who grew up there, nor am I a newly arrived migrant fresh off the plane. I am now a true Australian. When viewing social issues, my thinking framework no longer comes solely from my Hong Kong upbringing, but is shaped by decades of observation and experience in Australia. Of course, compared with people born and raised here, my perspectives are still quite different.
This issue of Fellow Travellers discusses the major transformation in Australia’s aged care policy. In my article, I pointed out that this is a rights-based policy reform. For many Hong Kong friends, the idea that “older people have rights” may feel unfamiliar. In traditional Hong Kong thinking, many older people still need to fend for themselves after ageing, because the entire social security system lacks structured provisions for the elderly. Most Hong Kong older adults accept the traditional Chinese belief of “raising children to support you in old age”, expecting the next generation to provide financial and daily-life support. This mindset is almost impossible to find in mainstream Australian society.
Therefore, when Australia formulates aged care policy, it is built upon a shared civic value: to age with support and dignity is a right every older adult should enjoy, and a responsibility society—especially the government—must bear. As immigrants, we may choose not to exercise these rights, but we should instead ask: when society grants every older person these rights, why should our parents and elders deprive themselves of using them?
I remember that when my parents first came to Australia, they genuinely felt it was paradise: the government provided pensions and subsidised independent living units for seniors. Their quality of life was far better than in Hong Kong. Later they lived in an independent living unit within a retirement village, and only needed to use a portion of their pension to enjoy well-rounded living and support services. There were dozens of Chinese residents in the village, which greatly expanded their social circle. My parents were easily content; to them, Australian society already provided far more dignity and security than they had ever expected. My mother was especially grateful to the Rudd government at that time for allowing them to receive a full pension for the first time.
However, when my parents eventually needed to move into an aged care facility for higher-level care, problems emerged: Chinese facilities offering Cantonese services had waiting lists of several years, making it nearly impossible to secure a place. They ended up in a mainstream English-speaking facility connected to their retirement village, and the language barrier immediately became their biggest source of suffering. Only a few staff could speak some Cantonese, so my parents could express their needs only when those staff were on shift. At other times, they had to rely on gestures and guesses, leading to constant misunderstandings. Worse still, due to mobility issues, they were confined inside the facility all day, surrounded entirely by English-speaking residents and staff. They felt as if they were “softly detained”, cut off from the outside world, with their social life completely erased.
After my father passed away, my mother lived alone, and we watched helplessly as she rapidly lost the ability and willingness to communicate with others. Apart from family visits or church friends, she had almost no chance to speak her mother tongue or have heartfelt conversations. Think about it: we assume receiving care is the most important thing, but for older adults who do not speak English, being forced into an all-English environment is equivalent to losing their most basic right to human connection and social participation.
This personal experience shocked me, and over ten years ago I became convinced that providing culturally and linguistically appropriate care—including services in older people’ mother tongues—is absolutely necessary and urgent for migrants from non-English backgrounds. Research also shows that even migrants who speak fluent English today may lose their English ability if they develop cognitive impairment later in life, reverting to their mother tongue. As human lifespans grow longer, even if we live comfortably in English now, who can guarantee we won’t one day find ourselves stranded on a “language island”?
Therefore, I believe the Chinese community has both the responsibility and the need to actively advocate for the construction of more aged care facilities that reflect Chinese culture and provide services in Chinese—especially Cantonese. This is not only for our parents, but possibly for ourselves in the future. The current aged care reforms in Australia are elevating “culturally and linguistically appropriate services” to the level of fundamental rights for all older adults. I see this as a major step forward and one that deserves recognition and support.
I remember when my parents entered aged care, they requested to have Chinese meals for all three daily meals. I patiently explained that Australian facilities typically serve Western food and cannot be expected to provide daily Chinese meals for individual residents—at most, meals could occasionally be ordered from a Chinese restaurant, but they might not meet the facility’s nutrition standards. Under today’s new legislation, what my parents once requested has now become a formal right that society must strive to meet.
I have found that many Chinese older adults actually do not have high demands. They are not asking for special treatment—only for the basic rights society grants every older person. But for many migrants, even knowing what rights they have is already difficult. As first-generation immigrants, our concerns should go beyond careers, property ownership and children’s education; we must also devote time to understanding our parents’ needs in their later years and the rights this society grants them.
I wholeheartedly support Australia’s current aged care reforms, though I know there are many practical details that must still be implemented. I hope the Chinese community can seize this opportunity to actively fight for the rights our elders deserve. If we do not speak up for them, then the more unfamiliar they are with Australia’s system, the less they will know what they can—and should—claim.
In the process of advocating for culturally suitable aged care facilities for Chinese seniors, I discovered that our challenges come from our own lack of awareness about the rights we can claim. In past years, when I saw the Andrews Labor Government proactively expressing willingness to support Chinese older adults, I believed this goodwill would turn smoothly into action. Yet throughout the process, what I saw instead was bureaucratic avoidance and a lack of understanding of seniors’ real needs.
For example, land purchased in Templestowe Lower in 2021 and in Springvale in 2017 has been left idle by the Victorian Government for years. For the officials responsible, shelving the land has no personal consequence, but in reality it affects whether nearly 200 older adults can receive culturally appropriate care. If we count from 2017, and assume each resident stays in aged care for two to three years on average, we are talking about the wellbeing of more than a thousand older adults.
Why has the Victorian Government left these sites unused and refused to hand them to Chinese community organisations to build dedicated aged care facilities? It is baffling. Since last November, these officials—even without consulting the Chinese community—have shifted the land use application toward mainstream aged care providers. Does this imply they believe mainstream providers can better meet the needs than Chinese community organisations? I believe this is a serious issue the Victorian Government must reflect upon. Culturally appropriate aged care is not only about basic care, but also about language, food and social dignity. Without a community-based perspective, these policy shifts risk deepening immigrant seniors’ sense of isolation, rather than fulfilling the rights-based vision behind the reforms.
Raymond Chow