The Aged Care Crisis will decide the federal election

Last month, our union had to resort to opinion polling to tell politicians what they should already know.

The aged care crisis is here, it’s real and it’s going to help decide the coming election.

JWS Research found a strong majority (62 per cent) of Australians believe federal aged care funding should be increased, with only 15 per cent believing it is about right. And 71 per cent of Australians support a 25 per cent increase for all aged care workers when told this is equivalent to an increase of between $5.40 and $7.20 per hour to increase the average wage to $29 per hour.

At the coming federal election, almost half of voters (46 per cent) would be more likely to vote for a party or candidate who supports increased Federal Government funding for aged care.

Sometimes you have to show politicians their job is on the line to get them to do it properly. This is an especially sad indictment when you consider we have had a Royal Commission and a pandemic to highlight the desperate mess that aged care is in.

For the last five years the Health Services Union (HSU) has relentlessly banged the drum for aged care funding. We exposed the rationing of sanitary pads in aged care homes and the six dollar a day food budgets.

We have pushed constructive solutions. We partnered with Equity Economics to show the additional cost of delivering high quality, decent care to older Australians in residential aged care is $20 billion over four years, which could be funded by lifting the Medicare Levy by 0.65 per cent.

This includes personal care workers, recreational activities officers, catering, cleaning, administration, and other support staff.

We must recognise that the work of the aged care workforce has become more complex as the needs of an ageing population and community expectations of care have evolved. Older Australians are entering residential aged care with increasingly complex physical, social and emotional needs, in part driven by the increasing rates of dementia.

Yet the starting rate of pay for a personal care worker is $21.96 per hour while a qualified personal care worker earns $23.09 per hour.

That it is simply unacceptable.

Indeed in their final submission, Counsel Assisting the Aged Care Royal Commission recommended that:

“Employee organisations entitled to represent the industrial interests of aged care employees covered by the Aged Care Award 2010, the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 and the Nurses Award 2010 should collaborate with the Australian Government and employers and apply to vary wage rates in those awards to reflect the work value of aged care employees in accordance with section 158 of the Fair Work Act 2009.”

It’s simply inexplicable that Scott Morrison and the Liberals are yet to back the HSU case for a decent wage rise for aged care workers. They won’t even commit to funding the outcome of a wage rise awarded by the Fair Work Commission. We will be reminding the public of this every day until the federal election.

Labor politicians don’t escape scrutiny either. Labor needs to be clear on its commitment to aged care or it will risk losing support to those independents and minor parties who do.

COVID-19 has completely upended our aged care system, but only because it was vulnerable before the pandemic. You simply can’t pay people as little as $22 an hour to do physically and emotionally exhausting work and expect them to keep turning up day in, day out. Especially when they are hopelessly understaffed and overworked.

Aged care desperately needs a wage rise and a permanent funding boost. Older Australians have been the backbone of their community and they deserve dignity, as do the people who care for them. ■