ABSTRACT
The My Aged Care ‘gateway’ is an Australian Government website and call centre designed to connect older Australians with aged care providers. In this chapter, the website is analysed to answer the question of how the ‘problem’ of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and aged care are represented using Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ policy analysis framework. My Aged Care represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as lacking information and access to care. An alternative representation of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is presented by the Healing Foundation, a national organisation working to address the ongoing trauma created through race-based policies of forcibly removing children from families (known as the Stolen Generations). Through the concept of social suffering, it becomes evident that cumulative and communal harms endured by older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are framed out of the My Aged Care model. As a result, collective justice for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is severed from questions of aged care needs, as older individuals are rendered responsible for managing harms that occurred through discriminatory policies targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
