Budget to include ‘multi-billion dollar’ investment in care economy wages
Jim Chalmers is setting billions of dollars aside in Tuesday’s budget for wage increases in the aged care and child care sectors, as the Fair Work Commission mulls over pay rises.
Jim Chalmers is setting billions of dollars aside in Tuesday’s budget for wage increases in the aged care and child care sectors, as the Fair Work Commission mulls over pay rises for employees in the female-dominated industries.
The Treasurer revealed on Sunday there would be a “multibillion-dollar provision in the budget for better wages in the care economy” alongside a $1.1bn over the next four years to put superannuation onto Paid Parental Leave
“The primary focus of our economic plan is to help ease inflation and the cost of living, with a big focus on delivering more help for middle Australia and more help for mums,” he said.
“Whether it’s a bigger tax cut for more than 90 per cent of women, paying superannuation on paid parental leave, wiping HELP debt, or funding wage increases in aged care and childcare – the women of Australia will be big beneficiaries of the budget we hand down on Tuesday.”
Dr Chalmers indicated that more aged care workers would be provided a pay rise, after Labor last year provided $11.3bn in the wake of a 15 per cent wage increase for nurses in aged care.
Tuesday’s budget is expected to provision for pay rises for other workers, after the FWC decided in April this year that chefs, cleaners and laundry hands working in the sector should be moved from level 2 to level 3 of the aged care award, resulting in a pay increase of about 7 per cent.
The FWC is also considering a push for a nine per cent pay rise for childcare workers and employees in other sectors dominated by women after the Australian Council of Trade Unions lodged a case for the pay bump, the outcome of which is due by next month.
The Australian understands the budget will not include an exact number for the increase in wages in the care economy, and rather be provisioned for in a contingency reserve.
Despite the indications from the government on wage rises for the care economy, the Australian Council of Trade Unions said Australians across all industries had “suffered historic low wage growth under the Coalition” and that Tuesday’s budget needed to include support for “continued wage growth”.
Australian Council of Social Service also called for policies such as subsidies for paid work experience to help long-term unemployed people find work, on top of a lifting of JobSeeker and the Remote Area Allowance.
Dr Chalmers revealed that after an immediate investment of $1.1bn in the upcoming budget to add super to PPL, the measure would cost more than $620m a year to fund permanently.
The figure is significantly higher than previous expectations, which indicated the measure would cost somewhere between $250m and $430m a year.
Labor was pushed to add super onto PPL by the Greens in September, with the minor party threatening to withhold its vote for the government’s key super reform that is set to double the concessional tax rate on super balances worth more than $3m.
Other budget announcements aimed at women, including a $1bn injection into crisis housing, were criticised by both the Greens and the Coalition as re-announcements.
Greens spokesman for housing Max Chandler-Mather said the $1bn to be spent on crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing family violence through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility “appeared to be the money secured by the Greens in negotiations last year on the Housing Australia Future Fund”.
Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said the only funding in the government’s $11.3b housing announcement on Friday that could represent new money was the $1bn promised by the Commonwealth to states and territories to build the infrastructure and services needed for new housing developments.
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