The aged care and disability law framework 

Australian law reaches care for older people and people with disability through two layers that answer different questions. Commonwealth scheme legislation decides who is eligible for publicly funded supports, what a provider must do, and who regulates it. State and Territory law decides who may make a decision for an adult who cannot make it alone, and who may intervene when an adult is at risk of abuse. The prior question in any problem is which layer governs, because an answer drawn correctly from the wrong layer is still wrong.

Two Commonwealth schemes, not one

Commonwealth support divides along the line between ageing and disability, and each side has its own Act and its own regulator. Aged care is governed by the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth), which establishes the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission by s 344¹. Disability support is governed principally by the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Cth), which establishes the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission by s 181A³.

The objects provisions show what each scheme is for. The NDIS Act is directed to providing "reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme", and to enabling people with disability to exercise choice and control in the pursuit of their goals (s 3(1)(d)–(e)). It states that it gives effect, in conjunction with other laws, to Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (s 3(1)(a)).

The changeover on 1 November 2025

The governing aged care statute changed recently, and the date decides which Act a student should be reading. The Aged Care Act 2024 commenced on 1 November 2025 under its own commencement table (s 2). Schedule 3 to the Aged Care (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2024 (Cth) then repealed three Acts, each in the same three words — "Repeal the Act." — being the Aged Care Act 1997, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 and the Aged Care (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997².

The 1997 Act is therefore not a source of current entitlements. It continues to operate only where a transitional provision preserves it, and the transitional Act does that repeatedly, providing that despite the repeal a particular requirement or claim continues as if the repeal had not happened. Citing the 1997 Act for a current obligation is an error. Citing it for the treatment of a claim made before the transition time may not be.

The Statement of Rights

The 2024 Act places a Statement of Rights in the body of the statute rather than in delegated instruments (s 23). The rights stated include a right to "exercise choice and make decisions that affect the individual’s life", extending to the services approved, how and by whom they are delivered, and the individual's financial affairs and personal possessions; a right to be supported to make those decisions and to have them respected; and a right to take personal risks, including in pursuit of quality of life and social participation. Section 23 also states rights to equitable access to assessment that is culturally safe, culturally appropriate, trauma-aware and healing-informed, and to palliative and end-of-life care when required.

Disability supports inside and outside the NDIS

Not every Commonwealth-funded disability service is an NDIS service, and the distinction has its own statute. The Disability Services and Inclusion Act 2023 (Cth) is directed to "provide funding, outside of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, to persons that provide supports and services" for people with disability, their families and carers (s 3(b))⁴. That phrase marks the boundary. The Act also protects the rights of people receiving those supports by setting compliance standards and requiring funded persons to maintain complaints management and incident management systems (s 3(f)).

Discrimination law runs across both schemes

Scheme legislation decides funding and regulation; it does not exhaust a person's rights. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) operates independently of either scheme, with objects including "to eliminate, as far as possible, discrimination against persons on the ground of disability" in work, accommodation, education, access to premises, clubs and sport, and in the provision of goods, facilities, services and land (s 3(a))⁵. A person refused a service may have a claim under that Act whether or not they are a participant in any scheme.

What the Commonwealth schemes do not decide

Neither scheme decides who may consent for an adult who cannot consent, and neither supplies the machinery for responding to abuse of an adult. That is State and Territory law, and it is not uniform. In South Australia the Ageing and Adult Safeguarding Act 1995 (SA) establishes the Office for Ageing Well and the Adult Safeguarding Unit, and turns on the concept of a relevant adult — "a person who is 18 years or older who may be vulnerable to abuse" (s 3(1))⁶. It defines abuse as an act or series of acts, including a failure to take appropriate action, "occurring within a relationship of trust, dependency or imbalance of power" that causes harm (s 4(1)), and names financial, physical, psychological or emotional, and sexual abuse among its forms (s 4(2)).

This article states the South Australian position only, and its terms should not be read across to another jurisdiction. Before stating any rule about consent, guardianship or adult safeguarding, identify the State or Territory in issue and work from that jurisdiction's own legislation.

Applying this in a problem question

1. Identify what the person is receiving: aged care, NDIS supports, Commonwealth-funded disability services outside the NDIS, or none of these.
2. Name the governing Act for that layer, and check the date — for aged care, establish whether the conduct occurred before or after 1 November 2025.
3. Separate the funding-and-regulation question from the decision-making question, and take them one at a time.
4. For any issue of consent, guardianship or safeguarding, identify the State or Territory and work from its legislation rather than the Commonwealth scheme.
5. Ask whether the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) supplies a claim independently of the scheme.
6. Cite the section that confers the function relied on, rather than naming the body that exercises it.

Self-check

• Have I identified which of the two layers the question is actually about?
• Have I established whether the aged care conduct falls before or after 1 November 2025?
• Have I named the State or Territory before stating any rule about consent, guardianship or safeguarding?
• Have I cited the section conferring the function, rather than the name of the regulator?