ANMF members and the community will keep the Morrison Government’s aged care failures in the election spotlight with a rally in the marginal Corangamite electorate on Friday 6 May.
Corangamite Labor MP Libby Coker will speak at the rally, supported by Geelong Trades Hall Council and Victorian Trades Hall Council, at 12 noon outside Mercy Place Rice Village 7 Moylan Loop, Marshall Geelong.
Fixing aged care has been the centrepiece of the Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s election commitments which align with the four key asks of the Federal ANMF’s aged care campaign – ‘It’s not too much to ask’ and the aged care royal commission’s recommendations.
Federal Labor has promised it will:
- Fund and legislate mandated minimum 215 daily care minutes per day – this will include 44 minutes with a registered nurse and will include enrolled nurses and personal care workers. Based on the number of residents this will be the mechanism to calculate the ratio.
- Fund and legislate 24/7 registered nurse on site – ANMF members have negotiated this in their enterprise agreement at 85 per cent of Victoria’s private and not-for-profit residential aged care facilities. This is not the case in other states such as NSW and QLD.
- Increase wages that value aged care staff – by funding the outcome of the ANMF’s and other union work value case in the Fair Work Commission
- Legislate clear transparency measures that tie funding to care
The aged care royal commission handed down its final report and recommendations on 1 March 2021. Since then, ANMF members report staffing levels are worse and residents continue to suffer from missed care.
The Morrison Government has announced an additional $18.8 billion in the last two federal budget, but it has failed to legislate reforms that would force aged care providers to increase the number of nurses and personal care workers rostered on each shift.
Legislation is expected to be in place in October 2023 – well after the next election.
ANMF Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said ‘John Howard’s Aged Care Act 1997 ripped nurses out of nursing homes and created an illusion that residential aged care facilities were not health services.
‘ANMF members never gave up and have campaigned for 25 years for the promises we have seen from Labor and Anthony Albanese and there is now light at the end of the tunnel.
‘That’s why we want people to think of their parent, grandparent, loved one – or perhaps even their own future – and vote to fix aged care,’ Ms Fitzpatrick said.
