UnitingCare Australia’s national director said the aged care network undertook the analysis to emphasise “the scale of the challenge”.
One of the country’s largest aged care bodies says raising wages across the sector will cost the federal government $4 billion a year — an assessment it hopes will expose the enormity of the problem to major parties in the election lead-up.
She added the crisis was a gender equality issue as well, given “around 86 per cent of the workforce in direct care roles identify as female”. Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the Coalition had invested $18.3 billion into the sector which included a new model designed to deliver “more equitable distribution of funding”, as well as a new independent pricing authority currently in a bill before Parliament.
The new funding model, along with the establishment of the new Independent Hospital and Aged Care Pricing Authority, are part of legislation currently before Parliament . UnitingCare’s submission follows a recent call from Catholic Health Australia, the country’s largest provider network, to overhaul visa restrictions so the sector couldThe Health Services Union, which lodged the case before the industrial umpire, is calling for a 25 per cent pay rise, which, if successful, would take the wage for a qualified personal carer from $23.09 to $28.86 an hour.
Aged care providers uniformly support a pay rise for their workers, but no major bodies within the sector have backed a specific figure.
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