Budget 2022: Aged-care workers frozen out

The budget failed to address the need to boost aged care workers’ pay as recommended by the aged care royal commission, advocates say.

Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers.

Underpaid and overworked aged-care workers have been forgotten in the federal budget, leaving them “on the edge of poverty” and threatening further flight from the sector, advocates warn.

Unions, aged-care providers, welfare groups and economists agreed the 2022 budget has let down more than 360,000 current aged-care workers and done little to lure new carers into a high-­demand sector.

“There is nothing in this budget to improve aged-care wages,” said Sean Rooney of the Australian Aged Care Collaboration.

Leading Age Services Australia chief executive Sean Rooney.

“It will leave our dedicated workers on the edge of poverty and many older Australians without the services they need.

“Since the start of the pandemic, aged-care workers have gone above and beyond. They should be getting the pay they ­deserve and career certainty.”

Opposition aged-care spokeswoman Clare Neil told aged-care workers with the Health Services Union – who gathered outside parliament on Wednesday morning – she and Labor were committed to “fixing aged care”.

“The system is the responsibility of the government and last night they had the chance to fix it,” she said.

“There’s a fundamental difference between how we approach aged care and how the government approaches aged care – and that is that we get that you (the workers) are the centre of the ­solution to this problem, that if you have proper support, proper training, if you have a proper system, if you have proper rewards for the hard work you do, then aged care would be dignified.

“You can’t fix aged care without fixing aged carers.”

Ms O’Neil alluded to an aged-care package that Labor would announce, and said she expected aged-care workers “to be pleased with what you see”.

The budget was light on new initiatives in aged care, the most significant being a $350m commitment to bring on-site pharmacies and community phar­macy services into nursing homes.

Josh Frydenberg said the 2022 budget concentrated on implementing $18.8bn in measures laid out in 2021, when the government responded to the damning findings of neglect in the system by the aged-care royal commission.

But improving the wages and conditions of aged-care workers, a key royal commission recom­mendation, remains unresolved, with the government saying it would wait until the outcome of a Fair Work Commission wage case before making any budget commitments to fund pay increases.

The budget noted the $800 one-off retention bonus for carers announced by the government in February in recognition of their increased workload during the pan­demic, a commitment of $215m, but it is understood only about one in four workers have been able to access that payment.

Anglicare Australia chief executive Kasy Chambers said increasing aged-care workers’ pay was “major unfinished business”.

“Without action, the workforce crisis will only get worse. Older people will pay the price,” Ms Chambers said. “Low pay is forcing workers to make tough decisions. Many workers are leaving aged care altogether.”

United Workers Union aged-care director Carolyn Smith said the budget “fiddles around the edges of the aged-care crisis and the workforce crisis”, noting 75 per cent of aged-care workers have indicated they want to leave the sector within five years.