Labor should more actively encourage wealthier Australians to spend more of their superannuation on their own care, an industry leader says, to help free up capacity in the struggling system to protect elderly people without means.

Tracey Burton, the chief executive of Uniting NSW and ACT, will tell an industry event next week that some wealthier people believe they are entitled to fully publicly funded aged care – even while they maintain large superannuation balances with the intention of leaving the money to their next generation.

“A culture change is needed,” she told Guardian Australia before her last major speech before stepping down.

“We have to have to shift that thinking that the system should pay for all of our care, because it is going to be limited by the amount of money the government can afford to put into it.”

Burton said lobby groups for older Australians should be part of a national conversation about the appropriate use of the country’s $4tn in superannuation and acknowledged superannuation account holders were right to carefully consider their hard-earned savings.

“I think it will be a hard thing to shift, because this mindset some people have, saying ‘I’ve paid my taxes all my life and I deserve this’. It’s ingrained.

“This idea that superannuation is intergenerational and for passing on to your kids. It’s not. It is there to help you have the best retirement you can have, so spend it on what you need, and if that’s the aged care system, then spend it there.”

Uniting is a non-profit organisation that runs 70 residential aged care homes, 90 retirement villages and provides home care services. It also runs hospitals, disability care and a range of social services.

The federal government’s aged care taskforce in 2024 said wealthier Australians should pay more for aged care. It found a growing proportion of people aged 85 would have remaining savings in the next two decades, including those with “significant funds” available to fund aged care.

Burton warned the work of the landmark royal commission into aged care was not complete, with 200,000 people remaining on waiting lists for in home care and support.

She said full pensioners were unable to afford co-payments required for basic services like showering assistance, specialised transport or respite care.

Uniting believes the federal government should automatically exempt full pensioners from the rules requiring co-payments, a change with an estimated cost of about $50m a year.

“Showering in home care is not considered part of care clinical care at the moment, which means that some people have to pay a co-contribution, and if they can’t afford that, they’ll miss out on the assistance. The consequences of that are significant.”

Labor’s new aged care laws came into force in November. The government is spending $4.3bn on its Support at Home program and has pledged 83,000 additional places by the end of the financial year.

This month the federal government announced $115m in new funding through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program to increase access to residential aged care in select hotspots, including Adelaide, the Illawarra, Perth and the Hunter.

Burton praised extra funding for the aged care workforce and a greater presence of nurses in residential aged care settings.

Australia’s system is facing a demographic timebomb, with a doubling of people older than 65 and the percentage of the population in the workforce falling.