Ageing

Speech given to the Ethnic Community Council, 11th April, 1985 by Adam Graycar, Commissioner for the Ageing. This speech is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Significant and monumental changes have taken place in the recent past in the structure of Australia's population, in the needs exhibited and expressed by the population, and in the methods used to attend those needs. For conventional reasons those aged 65 or more are regarded as constituting our population of elderly persons. 10.5% of South Australia's population is aged 65 or more. Most are not in the labour force and thus rely for their security on past investments; government pensions and benefits and services; and their families. Some are fortunate in having a combination of all three, others survive on one or two of these