Why I resent being told to find a good job

EDWARD Makepeace has a great reason to resent being told to get a ‘good job’, and he couldn’t be more furious with Joe Hockey’s out of touch comment.

NO ONE becomes a nurse for the money.

The altruistic values that drove me to become a nurse — and to stay in my profession — now leave me vulnerable to the “irrational exuberance” of the housing market.

Last year house prices in Sydney went up by more than 12%. This year has been no different. I’m told they went up by 3% in March alone. I work in a major metropolitan hospital in Sydney, where house prices have gone through the roof. Where house prices go, rent will always follow.

And while house prices in my area rose in double digits my pay went up by 2.25%. It won’t go up by anything greater into the foreseeable future either, because Joe Hockey’s colleagues running the NSW government have frozen wage increases for public sector workers, including nurses and midwives, at that amount which barely matches CPI.

Nursing has its own unique characteristics that make the housing problem worse. Nurses work unsociable hours including nights and weekend shifts. We benefit from having accommodation close to our workplaces instead of having to travel one or two hours or longer for each shift. This is a particular concern to me as I find myself being priced out of the real estate market close to my work.

New nurses starting out in our profession, like assistants in nursing and enrolled nurses, are low paid and many are single parents who are mainly part time workers. These nurses in particular are in need of affordable housing which is out of reach for them in many parts of Sydney.

But more experienced nurses are equally vulnerable. They belong to a generation with scant superannuation made worse by their periodic absence from the workforce to have families. The GFC and poor super has forced many of these older nurses to stay much longer at work.

Our hospitals are quite rightly spread throughout Sydney so they are close to local communities. It makes sense that nurses live close by to their hospital of work and the communities they care for.

It is shocking that nurses can’t afford to buy a home in 95 per cent of Sydney suburbs.

Ironically, Joe Hockey is right: you need a good job paying good money to be able to buy your own home in Sydney. I am sure, in the parallel universe to mine that Joe lives in, there are people who do earn the sort of ‘good money’ that allows them to buy into our feverish housing market. And, having gained that foothold, they no doubt feel pretty good watching the value of their homes skyrocket.

But I don’t live in Joe’s affluent universe and nor do the majority of honest hardworking nurses who should still have the right to own their own home or to affordable rent. For us the prospect of living this Australian dream is fast evaporating.

I have absolutely no desire to change my profession. I love nursing and resent the ridiculous suggestion that I should walk away from my vocation to find a “good job” so that I can afford a roof over my head. Ultimately the loser, if I made that move, would be the sick and vulnerable that I care for every day.

Originally published as Why I resent being told to find a good job