Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As has just been said by the shadow minister at the table, the reality is that the government are quite happy to spend $200 million on advertising to tell us how wonderful they are. What could happen in the aged-care industry if they put that $200 million into dealing with some of the problems that are being faced? It is high time that they woke up to the fact that there is a growing need. In many aged-care facilities around the nation, there are simply not enough staff to provide an adequate level of care. As a recent audit of aged-care facilities in Queensland found, nearly half failed to meet accreditation standards. In one facility, where there were 93 residents, over 50 of whom were classified as high care, there was not a single registered nurse on night duty. In other facilities, the ratio of care staff to patients is as much as one to 125.

We really need to ask why exactly we face this dire shortage in nursing staff, which so badly compromises the level of care in our aged-care facilities. If you want to get to the heart of the aged-care nursing crisis in this country, you do not really have to look much further than the government’s industrial relations policy. The sad truth of the matter is that under this government’s extreme industrial relations policies, it is precisely people like aged-care nurses who stand to lose the most. As research from the New South Wales Nurses Association has revealed, aged-care workers are much worse off under Australian workplace agreements. Like hundreds of thousands of other workers, many aged-care nurses in Australia have had to accept AWAs that slash their conditions and their pay. Work Choices: I do not think that the government is allowed to use that phrase anymore. Work what? Work Choices, the name that dare not be mentioned in this place by coalition members. For many aged-care nurses, the changes brought in under Work Choices translate into a loss of up to $150 in pay a week. With nurses working in other areas earning up to $20,000 per annum more than those in aged care, it is little wonder why nurses are leaving the industry en masse.

Yet, as a study conducted by the University of Melbourne last year found, the current predicament in which aged-care nurses now find themselves is not only hurting them financially; it is also causing emotional exhaustion. One interview respondent in the study explained:

I have worked in aged care nursing all of my nursing career of 27 years. We claim to care for our residents but everyday we go home feeling emotionally drained and wrecked because we are run off our feet and receive not much support ... we are not providing emotional support for residents or are able to care for them properly because we don’t have the time ... the health care system is chewing up nurses and residents alike.

Coming from someone who has worked in the aged-care industry for 27 years, that is a shocking indictment of the state of aged care in this country. The fact that these unfair and unbalanced laws are detrimentally affecting the ability of the aged-care industry to recruit and retain the staff levels necessary for a quality aged-care system does not seem to worry this arrogant government one little bit. This government is out of touch with the needs of our community. This government is out of touch with the standards of care that Australians expect for their elderly residents, and it has lost sight altogether of the political mainstream.

This government is a government of numbers. And we all know that you cannot translate quality care and compassion into numbers. This government does not care that our elderly residents are forced to sit in hospital wards for weeks at a time waiting for a nursing home bed to finally become available. It does not care that elderly residents of aged-care facilities are exposed to substandard levels of care. And it certainly does not care about a fair and equitable deal for aged-care nurses. No, like all true ideologues, this government cares only for its ideological agenda.

To ensure that elderly Australians like Mrs Duim receive the level of care that they are rightfully entitled to, there needs to be substantial funding planned for the future. The Labor Party supports these amendments to the Aged Care Act, but they will not fix the shortages in aged-care beds and they will do little to improve the quality of aged care. Only a Labor government can rescue the state of aged-care services in Australia and ensure that our elderly residents are treated with the care and respect they deserve. Senior Australians deserve better.

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