Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gilmore for her question, and I was pleased that she was able to deliver the good news of the pay rise for aged-care workers recently with Assistant Minister Kearney at Uniting Osborne House Nowra. Our historic $36 billion aged-care budget proves our commitment to workers, to residents, to care recipients, to their families and to their friends. Our budget included a massive and unprecedented 17 per cent increase to residential aged-care funding through the AN-ACC funding model; an $11.3 billion increase to minimum award rates of dedicated aged-care workers by a much-needed, much-deserved 15 per cent; an additional 9,500 home-care packages to allow people to age at home for longer; $112 million to improve access to GPs for aged-care residents; and much more.

In response to our aged-care budget, the CEO of BaptistCare NSW/ACT, Charles Moore, said, 'Investment in the aged-care sector creates value, not just for the individuals receiving care but for their families, for the community and for the economy.' Catholic Health chief executive Pat Garcia described our budget measures to the Australian as a 'game changer' for aged care. Mr Garcia said after this budget that aged-care providers are 'reassessing the once questionable viability of facilities in light of these new numbers' in the aged-care budget.

One of my favourite parts of this job is getting out of this building and talking to aged-care residents and workers on the ground. In the last 12 months, I've been to homes in every state and territory. In the week after the budget, I travelled to Cairns, Townsville and Darwin to give the good news to aged-care workers about what this budget contained for them. Let me tell you that those aged-care workers were ecstatic. Finally they feel as if they're being properly recognised for their complex, skilled and critical work. It means that workers like Josie from Palmerston, who has been working for 32 years in aged care and who talks about her residents as her heart and her soul, will be getting a 15 per cent pay rise.

We were elected a year ago, and we promised to lift this sector out of crisis. In our first 12 months, we've addressed 69 recommendations of the royal commission—that is almost half—including recommendation 133, more stringent reporting requirements; recommendation 120, a new funding model for residential aged care; recommendations 11 and 115, setting up the new independent pricing authority; recommendation 86, minimum care time standards and 24/7 nurses; and recommendation 77, setting up a new national registration regime. We are taking the action that the coalition refused to take in nine long years, and we are doing the work to lift aged care out of crisis, finally.

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