Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the parliamentary secretary representing the minister for that. I am aware of the discussions that are going on with the sector and I applaud that because the sector certainly needs that sort of engagement and support. My concern is that while the talks go on the crises that I have been talking about are facing the sector and are not being adequately dealt with. The parliamentary secretary will know, from her engagement with the sector, that those are real, pressing issues right now and there needs to be something done in the shorter term to deal with those issues. I appreciate that they picked up on the unintended consequences. In fact, last night we passed the amendment dealing with the issue of gross versus net FBT, but that is only a part of it. That issue had not hit the sector—it was coming down at them but it had not quite hit them—but the sector is nearing crisis in terms of being able to attract and keep staff. So, even without the FBT issue that was about to come down on top of them—although it was starting to impact a little, because I am aware of examples where staff decided not to take jobs because they had been advised by Centrelink of the forthcoming changes to FBT—that was not a factor, at that time, in the issues that are facing the sector.

Again, I repeat that talking is good, but it is not the only thing that needs to be done. We need to turn it into action. What is going to be done in the short term to help aged-care providers, for example, deal with the issues of their staff leaving, of not getting paid and of the decreasing real value of their take-home package because this cap has not been indexed from 2000? As I understood it, it was, at the time, the government’s intention to index. That is what I have been told. It did not happen, so while the cap remains at $30,000, as I said last night, if it had been indexed it would now be worth $38,000. That was if it had been indexed with CPI. If they had used AWOTI, it would be over $43,000. That is a real impact on people who are working in these sectors. They are saying, ‘Please, can you deal with this now while you deal with the longer term issues?’ They really appreciate that the longer term issues are being dealt with, but it is no use dealing with the long-term issues if some of these organisations are going to have to cease providing the services that are being provided now.