If ever I have the misfortune to be admitted to a public hospital, the food is invariably the worst part. I try to stick as much as I can to just sandwiches and a cup of broth: they surely can’t stuff those up. Everything else is guaranteed to be dried-up, lukewarm, tasteless gloop.
Now, to be fair, getting 400-odd meals out of the kitchen at the same time, by the lowest bidder, is a pretty big ask. But doing better? Well, everyone’s an expert, but few are capable, it seems.
Not even professional chefs. Just ask Jamie Oliver, whose Jamie Oliver Food Foundation went tits-up in 2019. From employing ‘disadvantaged young people’ to berating poor people for not eating enough organic, heirloom, lentils, Oliver’s ventures were long on virtue-signalling, short on business nous. According to him, though, “I failed on school dinners because eating well is a ‘posh and middle class’ concern.”
No, it’s because, as blogger Skepchick succinctly put it, “Food is for white liberals what sex is for the religious right”: an opportunity to moralise, finger-wag and pose on a holier-than-thou soapbox.
Anything but deliver: UK website Sustain wrote in 2013 that, 21 ‘voluntary initiatives’ have been launched by government since 1992 […] they have failed in every case. We estimate that these initiatives have cost more than £54 million of taxpayer’s money in the process.
Can we chalk up another one in Australia – with a dash of good, old, political cronyism?
On the face of it, Maggie Beer’s campaign to improve food in aged care is the kind of story Australians love: an 80-year-old culinary icon championing a better deal for vulnerable older Australians.
Well, a certain kind of Australian: the ageing, ‘progressive’, middle-class whites who watch the ABC.
Through her ABC TV show, Maggie Beer’s Big Mission, Beer has become the public face of a push to elevate meals in a sector long criticised for neglect, underfunding and malnutrition.
Behind the hearty broths and natural food Beer promotes, though, is a politically nimble foundation that has so far received $7.5 million in federal funding – $5 million of it in a “closed non-competitive” tender because it was an election commitment by Labor.
But there’s always millions more taxpayer dollars where those came from.
It is now manoeuvring for far more amid complaints from some in the sector that it cannot deliver change at the scale required. Federal budget submissions and emails obtained from the federal Health Department under freedom of information reveal the foundation wants an additional $15.3 million over the next three years.
Under the plan, the foundation would extend its core free Trainer Mentor Program that pairs aged care home kitchen teams with a qualified chef to enhance food and the dining experience for residents. It would also expand its online training modules and the other projects it runs to improve food in aged care homes.
And just what is the taxpayer getting for our money?
As the foundation pushes for more public money, though, critics say there is scant evidence its work is improving food standards at scale across Australia’s aged care homes, despite the prominence its work is given by the government among initiatives to improve aged care food.
While the foundation points to strong demand – 96 homes applied for just 15 available positions in its last intake – measurable outcomes, such as reduced malnutrition rates, remain elusive.
An independent evaluation is under way, but the final report is not due until November 2026. The foundation’s spokeswoman says a draft of the most recent evaluation “does seem to support” benefits like “reductions in unplanned weight loss”. She declined to provide the document.
Who cares, so long as the people who watch the ABC and vote Labor get to feel all warm and fuzzy and cronies get to keep trousering the millions?
Jakob Neeland, who runs aged care news site HelloCare, questions whether organisations like Beer’s are capable of driving the systemic change the royal commission said was needed.
“Our sector is sick and tired of platitudes. We need genuine, meaningful systemic change across the board,” says Neeland.
“Funding the Maggie Beer Foundation just seems like a PR exercise for the government because they get to be seen to be doing the right thing – which is all the federal government ever does in aged care. But it’s a facade, the foundation’s programs create the perception of the government doing the right thing while not delivering real change.”
The foundation enjoys strong support from MPs. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appeared alongside Beer to publicly promote the program, while Labor MPs praise it regularly in parliament. The most recent was Bendigo’s Lisa Chesters, who described it as “an amazing success”, while the federal Health Department produces promotional videos that end with joint government and Maggie Beer Foundation logos.
Neeland says there is cynicism about the foundation’s work in the aged care sector, and the government’s promotion of it, “because they’re not showing evidence that convinces people the programs are effective”.
In other words, a typical government programme.
