On 1 November 2025, the new Aged Care Act 2024 comes into force. It replaces the Aged Care Act 1997, a framework widely criticised for being outdated, overly focused on service providers, and insufficiently centred on the rights and dignity of older Australians.
The new Act represents a fundamental shift. Its purpose is to place the rights of older people and the quality of their care at the heart of the system, to simplify regulation, and to give the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission stronger enforcement powers to hold providers accountable.
For Approved Providers, accountability now extends beyond their own organisation to include governing bodies, staff, and contractors. Compliance is now a whole-of-organisation responsibility.
This article discusses:
- Key Aged Care Act 2025 Updates
- Why Manual Compliance Processes Fail Under The Aged Care Act 2025
- How To Simplify Aged Care Act 2025 Compliance With Gatekeeper
Key Aged Care Act Updates and What They Mean for Providers
The Act reshapes compliance expectations in five key ways
| Element | What Changes | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Reporting | Approved Providers must report through the Government Provider Management System (GPMS), with selected provider information published on My Aged Care. | Standardised reporting gives government greater transparency, consumers clearer comparability, and providers stronger incentives to operate with consistency and discipline. |
| Higher Risk of Penalties | The Act strengthens enforcement with higher civil penalties, reputational consequences, and potential loss of accreditation. | Compliance is now a board-level risk. Providers must act decisively to avoid consequences that can threaten solvency and reputation. |
| Perpetual Audit Evidence | The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) can request evidence at any time, not just at set audit cycles. | This ends the culture of ‘audit preparation’. Compliance must be continuous and embedded in daily operations, with live evidence always accessible. |
| Resident Rights First | Approved Providers must embed the new Statement of Rights in agreements, operations, and evidence records. | This shifts the balance from provider convenience to resident dignity and empowerment - ensuring rights are lived daily, not just written into policies. |
| Transparent Agreements | Every resident must have a current, accessible service agreement that is clear, fair, and regularly reviewed. | Agreements become living documents that guarantee resident rights and protect both parties, reducing disputes. |
Why Manual Compliance Processes Fail Under the Aged Care Act 2025
Despite investment and effort, compliance in aged care too often remains manual, fragmented, and reactive. Many Approved Providers still rely on spreadsheets, shared drives, and disconnected systems that cannot scale to meet the new legislative standard.
The cost of this approach is no longer hidden:
- Government: delayed or inaccurate reporting undermines national visibility of care quality and financial sustainability.
- Providers: duplicated effort, wasted resources, and constant risk of missed deadlines that trigger penalties, loss of accreditation, or reputational damage.
- Residents and families: diminished trust when rights and safety can’t be demonstrated without a last-minute scramble for evidence.
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The Aged Care Act demands processes where compliance is continuous, automated, and provable.
Accountability now extends from the boardroom to the front line. Manual workarounds will not withstand real-time audits, rights-based obligations, and regulatory enforcement.
Providers need systems that unify and centralise data, make it accessible for risk monitoring, and keep evidence live and accessible. With the new Act coming into force, the time for manual compliance has ended. Delay risks not just inefficiency, but direct penalties, reputational harm, and loss of community trust.
Contract automation isn’t optional. It’s the only sustainable path to compliance, confidence, and care quality under the new law.
Why Contract and Risk Automation is Critical for Aged Care Act compliance
Those who embrace automated contract and third party risk management for the Aged Care Act will survive scrutiny and thrive as trusted, transparent organisations.
Who benefits:
- Regulators gain confidence in evidence that is accurate, timely, and continuous.
- Boards gain verifiable proof of governance and prudential compliance.
- Staff gain clarity through embedded workflows, reducing administrative burden.
- Residents and families gain visible assurance that rights are upheld in practice, not just in policy.
What issues disappear:
- The scramble to prepare for audits.
- The risk of non-compliance created by manual gaps and missed obligations.
- The fragmentation of contracts and vendor records across spreadsheets and silos.
How the sector is better off:
- Providers operate with confidence, not uncertainty, knowing obligations are met by design.
- Consumers live with greater assurance of fairness, safety, and dignity in care.
- Governments gain reliable visibility of sector performance, strengthening trust in aged care delivery.
When organisations use a unified approach, the Act is no longer a regulatory hurdle: it is an opportunity to embed accountability, rebuild trust, and ensure aged care remains focused on dignity, safety, and the rights of every resident.
How to Simplify Aged Care Act 2025 Compliance with Gatekeeper
The new Aged Care regulatory framework demands continuous compliance, transparent governance, and accurate reporting. For providers, this creates daily pressure: maintain compliance, prove accountability, and protect financial sustainability, all while ensuring residents remain the priority.
Gatekeeper unifies contracts, compliance and spend in one platform, with LuminIQ AI agents automating the heaviest compliance tasks. Providers gain confidence that obligations are met not just at audit time, but every day.
This approach unlocks:
- Contracts that uphold resident rights: Every service agreement and supplier contract includes the right protections, obligations and renewal terms. Preapproved contract guardrails and automated alerts ensure agreements stay current and compliant with the Act - reducing disputes and strengthening trust with residents and families.
- Teams free to focus on care, not paperwork: Instead of chasing certificates or evidence, compliance staff can use the Vendor Portal to keep information up to date. This means lean teams can sustain compliance and spend more time on resident outcomes - fulfilling the Act’s intent to centre resources on quality of care.
- Audits become a non-event: With evidence centralised and categorised by contract, obligation and vendor, providers can produce ACQSC or inspector-ready reports instantly. Perpetual audit-readiness means no last-minute scrambles - supporting the Act’s requirement for demonstrable, ongoing compliance.
- Risks surfaced before they become breaches: Real-time dashboards highlight gaps in compliance or obligations before they escalate. Meanwhile, LuminIQ agents monitor and surface risks across contracts, risk data and vendor activity so leadership can act early, reduce regulatory risk ratings, and show a culture of prevention rather than reaction.
- Reporting that builds regulator confidence: Vendor and provider data is captured and validated at the source, before submission. This ensures GPMS and My Aged Care reporting is accurate, complete, and Act-compliant - removing a major source of compliance risk.
- Financial sustainability with compliance built in: By linking spend directly to contracts, providers demonstrate prudential compliance while gaining a clear view of obligations and financial exposure. Boards can prove funds are allocated transparently and sustainably, reinforcing the Act’s mandate that resources flow into resident care.
- Readiness for regulatory change: Guided best practice workflows give teams confidence in meeting new Act requirements. Compliance isn’t a side-task; it becomes embedded in daily operations - strengthening governance and community trust.
Wrap Up
Gatekeeper makes compliance part of daily operations, with evidence always at hand.
This turns the Aged Care Act from a burden into an opportunity for providers to lead with confidence, earn trust, and prove resilience to regulators, residents, and families.
Book your demo today to see how Gatekeeper turns compliance obligations into outcomes you can rely on.
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