Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As I have indicated for the previous question, this government does take aged care, particularly the facilities, very seriously. We have provided additional funding for that. We have also looked at how we could ensure that building the aged-care workforce is also undertaken; for the benefit of Senator Fielding, there is better planning of our aged-care workforce. It is important to ensure that the workforce are supported in the aged-care facilities so that they can provide the care that our older Australians do require.

It is about supporting the vital role that nurses play in the skilled workforce to improve the quality of care. The government will invest $523 million to train and support our nurses, including workers in aged care, and it will invest more than $310 million to deliver more than 31,000 training places, more than 1,000 clinical and graduate places and support for aged-care workers while they undertake that training. (Time expired)