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Robbie Moore: Aged Care Royal Commission
ASSISTANT STATE SECRETARY ROBBIE MOOORE
AS I WRITE this, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is about to hand down its recommendations.
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It has exposed critical issues such as understaffing and poor working conditions and that we, as a community, aren't providing our own citizens with the dignity and respect they deserve. The Interim Report was tabled in Parliament on 31 October 2019. The report found that: "the aged care system fails to meet the needs of its older, vulnerable, citizens. It does not deliver uniformly safe and quality care, is unkind and uncaring towards older people and, in too many instances, it neglects them". HACSU has been at the forefront throughout the royal commission in terms of submissions and appearances as well as broadly campaigning. We've said aged care workers need safe and appropriate staffing levels and much needed improvement to wages and conditions so we can attract and retain quality staff. Hopefully the royal commission will make recommendations about staffing levels - then the keen focus will be on Canberra. Sadly, the federal government has indicated it won't properly respond to the recommendations until it hands down its budget on 11 May, so we're stepping up our national campaign. HACSU branches on a state and national level have committed significant resources to campaign for more aged care workers. A delegation of Tasmanians joined other aged care workers from across the country in Canberra this week to lobby politicians and explain the current state of aged care and what's needed to ensure older Australians are looked after. We're also starting a social and traditional media advertising blitz across Australia, especially in Tasmania, to get our message out there that aged care needs to become a national priority. Keep your eye out and please join us to campaign for better and more dignified aged care services. We can only deliver quality services to older Australians by ensuring the staff who deliver them have better working conditions, safe staffing levels and decent wages and conditions.
