The Legislation for Providing Animal Access in Australian Residential Aged Care: It's Not a Zoo

ABSTRACT Providing meaningful animal contact to residential aged care facility (RACF) residents is problematic due to a lack of animal policies and National Guidelines. This paper examines how Australian Legislation could influence access to animal contact in RACFs and aims to answer the question, ‘Could current Legislation facilitate the development of policies or guidelines influencing the provision of Animal‐Assisted Activities (AAA) in RACFs?’ After identifying appropriate Australian Acts and Principles from the Federal Legislation, we analysed them to answer the research question. An additional examination of Queensland State Legislation, which includes limited mention of animals in RACFs, found it had little impact on Federally funded RACFs. After examining the Legislation, we identified three main areas that may contribute to providing residents with access to AAA in their RACF: resident rights, facility responsibilities and funding. However, these links are broad and subject to interpretation. This intersectional argument draws on the work from the domains of social policy, aged care policy, public health policy and animal welfare science, demonstrating the complexity of developing animal policies in RACFs. Acknowledging the complexity does not detract from the need for such policy development and the potential benefit of animal policies to residents and animals in RACFs.