Retirement incomes and aged care have both received considerable policy attention in Australia over the last three decades, but as in other countries, the two financing systems have remained largely separate in policy and practice. The problem is located at the intersection of wider policy debates about shifts from public to private welfare and concerns over intergenerational equity. This paper aims to integrate these related debates by incorporating aged care into the “pillars” framework used to understand retirement incomes. We propose an Aged Care Superannuation Levy applied to superannuation fund earnings, winding back the large and growing public tax concessions that support this pillar of private defined contribution pensions in Australia’s retirement income system. This revenue would create a social insurance pillar for aged care to stand alongside the four other pillars of retirement incomes that interact variously with aged care financing. Interest in a social insurance pillar of aged care financing is renewed in the light of the Royal Commission into quality and safety of aged care that reported in February 2021. As the Royal Commission recommendations on financing were divided and not taken up in government policy, the way remains opens for further consideration of the alternative approach proposed here.

中文翻译：

---

整合澳大利亚的退休收入系统和老年护理资金：将老年护理税作为一种社会保险选择

在过去的三十年里，澳大利亚的退休收入和老年护理都受到了相当大的政策关注，但与其他国家一样，这两种融资体系在政策和实践上基本上保持独立。这个问题位于更广泛的政策辩论的交叉点，这些辩论是关于从公共福利转向私人福利以及对代际公平的担忧。本文旨在通过将老年护理纳入用于了解退休收入的“支柱”框架来整合这些相关争论。我们建议对养老基金收入征收老年护理养老金税，以缩减支持澳大利亚退休收入体系中私人定额供款养老金这一支柱的庞大且不断增长的公共税收优惠。这笔收入将为老年护理创造一个社会保险支柱，与其他四个与老年护理融资相互作用的退休收入支柱并列。鉴于皇家委员会在 2021 年 2 月报告的老年护理质量和安全问题，对老年护理融资的社会保险支柱的兴趣得到了更新。由于皇家委员会关于融资的建议存在分歧，未在政府政策中采纳，因此方式仍有待进一步考虑此处提出的替代方法。