Add to ORKGOver recent years aged care has emerged as a significant public issue in the popular media and in the rhetoric of politicians anticipating elections. The prominence of nursing home scandals reflects a deep and longstanding public concern for vulnerable older people. The major issues of aged care, however, have recently been attracting wider public attention, emerging from their place on the \u27back burner\u27 of politics in the 1980s (Kendig, 1990). This increasing public recognition arises partly from the dominant baby boom cohort\u27s involvement with their ageing parents and anticipation of their own old age. Governmental responsiveness to ageing also reflects the problematic politics of appealing to older voters in times of fiscal rest...