The new Aged Care Act 2024 started on 1 November 2025. Its full text never uses the word "advertising". It never uses "marketing" either. That silence is not permission. Three other regimes already govern aged care marketing, and the Act names none of them. The Australian Consumer Law cost Bupa $6 million in 2020, over services it charged for and did not fully deliver. Section 133 of the National Law applies the moment you advertise a registered nurse or a physiotherapist. And Section 144(1) makes the Statement of Rights a condition of your registration. Here is which rule governs each sentence on your site.
Does the new Aged Care Act regulate aged care advertising?
No. Not in a single line.
The Aged Care Act 2024 got assent on 2 December 2024. It started on 1 November 2025, after a delay from the first date of 1 July 2025. It replaced three older Acts at once. The Aged Care Act 1997. The Aged Care (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997. And the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018.
So it is the whole rulebook now. I ran a word count across the full text as it started, Compilation No. 1, dated 1 November 2025. Here is what came back.
Source: my own count over the full text of the Aged Care Act 2024, Authorised Version C2025C00589, registered 1 November 2025. Bars are scaled to the largest term. Counts ignore case. Where marked, they include other forms of the word.
Zero. This is a law long enough to replace three others. And the words a marketer would look for are simply not there.
This is what catches providers out. A compliance team reads the Act. It finds nothing about advertising. It decides, fairly enough, that marketing sits outside the new rules. The first half of that is right. The second half is expensive.
The wall did not miss aged care. It landed somewhere else. Marketing in this sector is not lightly regulated. Three bodies regulate it, and the Act you were told to read names none of them. The ACCC. AHPRA. And the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, which reaches your marketing through your registration conditions rather than through any advertising rule.
What the Act says about "misleading" instead
"Misleading" does appear, 26 times. It is worth knowing exactly what it is pointed at, because it is not pointed at your website.
Every one of them is about information you give the regulator. None is about information you give a family.
Part 15, Division 1 of the Act carries the heading "Civil penalty provisions for false or misleading information or documents". Section 529 covers false or misleading information. Section 530 covers false or misleading documents. Section 591 covers the same thing in applications, claims and requests.
One is sharper than the rest. Section 129(1)(b) lets the Commissioner suspend your registration if your registration application "contained information that was false or misleading in a material particular". Section 131(1)(b) lets the Commissioner cancel it on the same ground.
So the Act polices what you tell the government. What you tell a family, it leaves to someone else. That handover is the whole story here.
What does the Statement of Rights actually require?
Section 23 sets out a Statement of Rights in thirteen parts. It covers choice and independence. Fair access. Safe, quality services. Freedom from violence and neglect. Privacy. Being told things in a way you understand. The right to complain without payback. The right to an advocate. And the right to stay connected with the people, and the pets, that matter.
For anyone writing copy, one part matters more than the rest.
Section 23(6) gives a person the right "to seek, and be provided with, records and information about the individual's rights under this section and the funded aged care services the individual accesses, including the costs of those services".
Information about services. Including costs. That is a right to be told the truth, and your fees page is where it gets tested.
Now the part almost every marketing article about the new Act gets wrong.
The Statement of Rights is not something a resident can sue you over. Section 24(3) says it plainly. "Nothing in this Division creates rights or duties that are enforceable by proceedings in a court or tribunal." Some marketing blogs warn that families can now take providers to court over the Statement of Rights. Those blogs are wrong. Discount the rest of what they told you.
Here is what Section 24 does say. Providers "must take all reasonable and proportionate steps to act compatibly with the rights specified in section 23". Parliament allowed for limits too. Rights can compete. Other people have rights. Other laws apply, and the Act names the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.
The teeth sit one step away. The Act's own note to Section 24 points straight at them.
Under Section 144(1) it is a condition of registration that a provider "must demonstrate understanding of the Statement of Rights and have in place practices to ensure that the provider acts compatibly with the Statement of Rights". And under Section 358, a person can complain to the Complaints Commissioner about a provider that does not.
Read that as a marketer and the risk is obvious. Nobody sues you. Somebody complains, and the complaint lands on your registration.
How does marketing copy become a compliance document?
Because a promise in a brochure is a service you have agreed to supply. This is not a theory. It has already produced the largest aged care marketing fine in Australia.
On 12 May 2020 the ACCC announced the outcome of a Federal Court case. The court ordered $6 million in penalties against Bupa Aged Care Australia Pty Ltd, for making misleading claims. Bupa had taken payment for extra services it did not supply, or supplied only in part. This hit residents at 20 aged care homes, across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. Bupa said it would pay back around $18.3 million.
The list of services is the telling part. It reads like the features section of a website. Dementia-designed gardens. Physiotherapy rooms. Talking book libraries. Leisure facilities. Hot breakfasts. Travel escorts. Climate control.
Rod Sims, then ACCC Chair, put it this way. "Bupa's failure to provide services for which it accepted payment is extremely disappointing and likely lessened the quality of life of the aged care residents in Bupa's care."
None of those were wild claims. Each one is the sort of line a marketing team writes without a second thought. The breach was the gap between the sentence and the service.
The pattern is still live. In December 2024 the ACCC took Ausnew Home Care Service Pty Ltd to court. It alleged the company made misleading claims when selling aged care and disability products online. Those included claims that products were "NDIS Approved", and claims about what consumers could expect under the consumer guarantees. These are allegations only. The court has not made findings. The point is simply that the regulator is still watching this sector.
Does AHPRA apply to an aged care provider?
Very often, yes. And this is the rulebook the sector talks about least.
Section 133 of the National Law covers the advertising of a regulated health service. It reaches registered health practitioners, and the businesses that employ them. It is not just for clinics.
Now look at what a home actually advertises. Registered nurses on site. Physiotherapy. Occupational therapy. Podiatry.
All four are registered professions under AHPRA's National Boards. So the moment your home page promotes them, that page is advertising a regulated health service. Section 133 is in the room.
That brings the familiar bans with it. No testimonials about the clinical side of care. No claims that promise a result. Nothing misleading, and no comparison you cannot prove. We set the whole framework out in the AHPRA advertising guidelines guide, and the testimonial rule in what counts as a testimonial under AHPRA.
So one page often carries two rulebooks. A sentence about the garden answers to the Australian Consumer Law. A sentence about the physiotherapist answers to Section 133 as well.
Which sentences on a typical aged care website are risky?
Here is the map, claim by claim. The right-hand column is the fix, not a ban.
| What providers write | Which regime it touches | Safer version |
|---|---|---|
| "Our residents love our caring nursing team." | Section 133: a testimonial about clinical care | State the staffing fact instead. "A registered nurse is on site 24 hours a day." |
| "Physiotherapy that gets residents walking again." | Section 133: it promises a result | "Physiotherapy is available on site. Your physiotherapist will set goals with you at your first assessment." |
| "All-inclusive care, no hidden fees." | Australian Consumer Law, plus the Section 23(6) right to cost information | Publish the actual fee schedule and name what is excluded. |
| "Dementia-designed gardens and a talking book library." | Australian Consumer Law: this is the Bupa fact pattern | Keep the claim only if the service exists at that home, today, and is available to the residents being charged. |
| "The best aged care home in the region." | Section 133 and the Australian Consumer Law: a comparison you cannot prove | Use a verifiable fact. Accreditation status, star rating, staff ratios, or years operating. |
| "We respect your rights under the new Aged Care Act." | Section 144(1): a claim you must now back up | Say what you actually do. Name the complaints pathway and how to reach an advocate. |
The last row is the one people miss. Saying you are compliant is itself a claim. Say on your site that you uphold the Statement of Rights, and you have handed a complaints officer a benchmark written in your own words.
Can you still use resident and family stories?
Sometimes. The test is what the story is about, not who said it.
A quote about the clinical side of care is a testimonial about a regulated health service. Take this one. "The nurses got my mother's pain under control." You cannot use it. You cannot use a reworded version either. And you cannot use a Google review you have copied onto your own page.
A quote about the non-clinical side sits differently. Meals. The garden. The room. How admissions felt. Whether staff rang back. That is service, not clinical care. Still get a second opinion on each quote. A sentence often drifts into clinical ground halfway through.
The safest fix is the one clinics landed on years ago. Move the stories off your own site and let them live where you did not publish them. We covered the same problem for practices in allied health marketing, and the NDIS version in the NDIS marketing guide.
One paragraph, three regulators: a worked example
Take an ordinary sentence from an aged care landing page.
"Families choose us because our award-winning nursing team gets the best outcomes in the region, with all-inclusive care and no hidden costs."
Count the problems.
- "Families choose us because" is a testimonial, just reported at second hand. It points at nursing, so Section 133 applies.
- "gets the best outcomes" promises a result. It also compares you to others in a way you cannot prove. Section 133, and the Australian Consumer Law.
- "award-winning" is fine only if you name the award and the year.
- "all-inclusive care and no hidden costs" is a consumer law claim. It also sits against the Section 23(6) right to know what the services cost.
Here it is again, so that it still sells and still stands up.
"A registered nurse is on site 24 hours a day, and physiotherapy and podiatry run on the premises each week. Our full fee schedule is on this page, including what is not covered. The outcome of our most recent accreditation audit is published on our compliance page, with the date it was conducted."
Shorter, more specific, and every clause is checkable. That is the trade compliance asks for. In my experience it is also the version that converts. A family comparing three homes is looking for facts they can put in a spreadsheet.
What should a provider fix this quarter?
In this order.
- List every clinical claim. Search your site for nurse, nursing, physiotherapy, allied health, therapy, clinical, and outcome. Each hit is a Section 133 question.
- Match every feature claim to a real service at each home. The Bupa pattern is a group-level brochure describing amenities that only some homes have. Site-level pages must be true site by site.
- Publish the fee schedule and the exclusions. Section 23(6) makes cost information a right. A page that says "contact us for pricing" is working against you.
- Remove or relocate clinical testimonials. Including copied reviews.
- Make the complaints pathway easy to find. Sections 23(9) and 358 assume it is. Burying it is a rights problem. It is also a trust problem.
- Write down who approved each claim. When a complaint arrives, the question is who signed off, and most providers cannot answer it.
None of this needs new software or a rebrand. It needs you to read your own website the way a regulator would, one sentence at a time.
