Improving conditions for aged care staff
Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) welcomes the Coalition government’s suspension of last Thursday’s applications for the Aged Care Workforce Supplement.
Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) welcomes the Coalition government’s suspension of last Thursday’s applications for the Aged Care Workforce Supplement.
The government announced it was suspending the supplement because it did not guarantee improved pay and conditions for all aged care workers.
“ACSA welcomes this decision and had consistently argued that all aged care workers deserve improved pay and conditions, but the implementation of it – making it dependent on enterprise bargaining agreements – was not the right design,” Adjunct Professor John Kelly, ACSA chief executive, said.
Many workers in smaller facilities would have missed out on the pay rises.
ACSA also welcomed the government’s commitment to working with the sector to develop a policy which will ensure that available funding is distributed in a way that is flexible, targeted and ensures the viability of aged care providers.
“We look forward to working with the government in re-examining the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s Caring for Older Australian report, improving the Living Longer Living Better reforms and achieving a vision for aged care to take us into the future.
“In particular we need to be supporting those small stand-alone aged care facilities in rural, remote and regional areas and those who look after CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) and Indigenous communities and the homeless which have much higher overheads and lower income and often struggle financially.”
Aged and Community Services Australia is a body for mission based aged care providers.
