Labor attacks coalition aged care handling

Tess Ikonomou | April 20, 2022

Labor has backed aged care workers across the nation planning to walk off the job over low pay and understaffing. 

Thousands of aged care staff in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia have voted in favour of strike action. 

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese told reporters Labor’s five-point plan to overhaul the system includes pay rises for staff, based on royal commission recommendations. 

He said there was a reason the one-word title of the royal commission report into the sector was ‘Neglect’.

“We want every dollar that goes into aged care to go into better care and better food and better outcomes for our older Australians,” he said in the Labor-held Queensland seat of Rankin. 

“This election is about whether we have a government that looks after people, or whether we have Scott Morrison who goes missing.”

Fair Work Commission hearings into a union bid to lift aged care pay to 25 per cent above the award will start next week.

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said “pressure had built up” on workers, whose wages have flatlined over the past decade. 

“Every week as the pay comes through and the bills come through, it’s becoming tighter and tighter,” he said. 

“People are saying we need to get wages moving and Mr Morrison’s response to that is to legislate a pay cut.” 

Liberal campaign spokeswoman Anne Ruston, who has been named as the government’s health and aged care minister if re-elected, said the government had provided $18.8 billion to fund the aged care royal commission recommendations. 

“We accept there were a lot of things that were wrong with aged care,” she told Sky News. 

“But that’s what we’re addressing at the moment.”

In response to a question about former NSW premier Mike Baird backing Labor’s 24-hour nurse pledge for homes, Senator Ruston said her government also accepted that finding.  

“We also accepted that … it would take us until 2024 to be able to do this in a way that didn’t have detrimental and consequential impacts on other areas of the healthcare sector that rely on our nursing staff,” she said. 

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said he welcomed the government now accepting the recommendation when it hadn’t previously. 

“We would like to see all parties commit to the comprehensive reform timetable that was set up by the royal commission,” he said. 

“It really does depend on when we can get those nurses.” 

Health Minister Greg Hunt attacked Mr Albanese over not being “across his aged care brief” and said his government provided a detailed response to all 148 recommendations made. 

“Labor has not addressed these recommendations, except where they have blatantly ignored the explicit advice of the commission, which will potentially result in aged care facilities closing,” he posted on Twitter.