There's nothing like a crisis when everything goes pear-shaped to cause us to starting thinking about the way we've got things structured - especially when all sorts of folk find themselves high and dry or left behind.

Right now a massive injection of federal and state government funding - mostly from non-existent reserves - is masking the need for a fuller debate.

But as soon as JobKeeper starts to be peeled back and JobSeeker is reduced to something like the old Newstart allowance there is bound to be a much fuller reflection - as the starkness of the situation is revealed.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care began its work against a background of already extensive and concerning issues but has found itself in the right place at the right time to assess first hand and with on-the-spot witnesses with current real-time experience of just how the system copes with a massive crisis.

The implications of casualisation of the workforce are stark in relation to both matters - and the impact of privatisation certainly food for thought in the minds of many when looking at aged care. Until now, the casualisation of the workforce has not been a bogeyman to everyone. Many found it convenient as a way of blending work into their current lifestyle.

The attractiveness of being able to pick and choose which jobs in which locations and for what shifts appealed to many young people in particular.

Getting a little bit extra in the hourly rate to offset the absence of sick and annual leave was also tempting - with not a lot of importance placed on the security net.

This looked good to many without dependents, those living at home or with immediate plans perhaps to engage in long term travel. Investing in a home or building up the superannuation were not high priorities. In an increasingly Uber-dominated world, even acquiring a motor vehicle has become less of a must-have.

That's all fine and dandy until there are no shifts - or way fewer of them to take-up.

The other problem has been that with a significant enough proportion of the workforce content to operate at least for the time-being within the casualised environment it's become a way too easy a norm for employers and hirers to insist upon for everyone else.

For some years now this has left those who would prefer permanent employment with no choice but to take what's on offer.

For many older Australians, in particular, this has meant working multiple jobs with no long term security, less flexibility in being able to take a holiday and no protection when they are sick. Nothing has quite so exposed this as the crisis in aged care.

Putting aside how the virus-spread started or re-started for the moment, the reliance by too many aged-care facilities on contracting casual staff working in multiple facilities has been a crucial factor both in the failure to contain earlier outbreaks in NSW or the current catastrophe in Victoria.

It's hard to imagine that so many of those workers both in hindsight and in any case would not have preferred to have been paid a significant enough wage to be able to earn their living from a single position only.

Let alone be faced with the dilemma of having to consider whether to go to work when feeling unwell because they don't have access to sick leave.

It's easy for the commentariat to pipe up and say that the workers should make provision out of their increased hourly rate to cover such times. But it doesn't work like that. Many cannot afford not to take every shift and others face the likelihood of either termination or less shifts in future if they don't turn up. COVID-19 has laid bare the perils of casualisation across the Australian workforce. So too at least the matter of aged care of the risks of an embrace of privatisation. It's always been a debating point whether the provision of quality care to our most vulnerable can in any way be compatible with a return to shareholders. Retirement villages is one matter - residential or hospitalised aged care is quite another.

Options can readily be considered by potential clients in relation to the former. For way too many of our most frail there are few alternatives when it comes to the latter.

Until relatively recently aged care was the exclusive province of either charities and not-for-profits or government. There are strong arguments that this should again be the case. This will come at a cost for the public purse but it's hard to argue that it should not be the way forward.

This Royal Commission's recommendations may well be the most significant any has ever made.