Budget 2020: Stimulus fails older workers and those in aged care by ‘favouring the young’

Older Australians affected by COVID-19 job losses miss out on budget support available to the young, advocates warn

Older Australians still wanting to work and those using the aged-care system have missed out under a budget that favours the young, ­advocates have warned.

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said while the broad thrust of the budget to stimulate the economy was appropriate, it was targeted at young people’s employment with no ­parallel support to keep older Australians in work.

“They are equally vulnerable to redundancy, age discrimination and being locked out of the workforce, and we are fearful this will be exacerbated by the failure to match youth subsidies,” he said.

Josh Frydenberg acknowledged in his budget speech that broad-ranging aged-care reform and “significant additional investment” would have to wait until the 2021 budget so the government could consider the final report of the aged-care royal commission, due in February.

However, the budget’s big-­ticket aged-care item, 23,000 extra homecare packages over four years worth $1.6bn, was criticised as inadequate, given the urgent need in the sector.

National Seniors chief advocate Ian Henscke said it was a “missed opportunity”, given almost 100,000 older Australians were on the homecare waiting list.

“The royal commission heard that 30,000 people either died waiting for a package or (were) going into aged care unnecessarily because they couldn’t be kept in their home,” he said. “The government’s announcement … means fewer than an extra 6000 people a year will get a homecare package.

“(It) is a band-aid which barely covers the wound.”

The budget documents revealed just 2000 of the 23,000 new packages over the four years would be “level-four” package that fund high care needs such as support with showering and toileting.

The royal commission has heard concerns about people either dying, or being forced to move into residential accommodation, because of the unavailability of high level packages.

Other aged-care groups recognised more was left to be done to adequately fund the sector.

Aged and Community Services Australia chief executive Patricia Sparrow said the new homecare funding was “a drop in the bucket in terms of what is required for the sector”.

“The homecare injection is unprecedented and welcome, however, there will still be thousands of people waiting for the right level of support or any support at all,” she said. “The system needs a reboot not tinkering. The kind of financing and budget reform necessary to set up Australia for our ageing population means a total rethink — not a series of announcements that prop up the current system.”

United Workers Union aged-care director Carolyn Smith called for transparency and accountability on the “buckets” of budget funding, including $245m for COVID-19 supplies, $103m for aged-care facilities’ preparedness for outbreaks and $92m for aged-care workers to be employed at a single site during outbreaks.

“Once again, the budget contains no specific funding measures allocated to day-to-day residential care staffing,” Ms Smith said. “Our members know only too well what happens to ‘buckets’ of funding — they end up as high-end foyer art and Ferraris for the owners. Workers and residents are left to do the best they can out the back.”

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation federal secretary Annie Butler questioned why the government was “deferring action on chronically understaffed nursing homes until the completion of the royal commission. Despite nurses, midwives and personal care workers producing extraordinary efforts to protect and defend Australians’ health during the pandemic, especially in aged care, this budget offers them little reward.

“It’s disappointing that there’s no action on job security and no action on improving wages and conditions for aged-care workers,” Ms Butler said.