Aged-care wage rise ‘not enough cash’

March 5th, 2013

David Schulberg the 3rd

Updated: 16:35, Tuesday March 5, 2013

Aged-care providers say $1.2 billion from the federal government will be nowhere near enough to kick-start a threefold expansion of the sector’s workforce by 2050.

Under a new aged-care workforce compact, the federal government says 350,000 workers would receive supplementary payments of one per cent over and above award increases.

It says minimum-award workers will get pay rises totalling nearly 19 per cent over four years, with enrolled nurses to receive 25 per cent higher pay and registered nurses an extra 29.9 per cent.

To access the supplementary payments, employers would have to sign up to enterprise bargaining agreements, which would set conditions such as increased wages and conditions.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the measure was necessary because the aged-care workforce needed to triple by 2050.

‘We’re all getting older one day at a time, but our society is going to have more older people in it than younger people,’ she told Sky News.

‘We do have problems in attracting people into this workforce and having them stay there.’

But providers raised doubts about the impact of the $1.2 billion in federal spending, to be redirected from other parts of the aged-care budget.

Catholic Health Australia chief executive Martin Laverty said not all workers would get the promised pay rise, because not all providers would be able to afford to sign up to the compact.

‘The (government) dollars don’t match the new wage targets,’ Mr Laverty told AAP.

‘It’s existing money rebadged, tied into enterprise bargaining agreements that set new wage levels.’

Providers were concerned the government had created an expectation of pay increases without delivering the new funding to make it happen.

‘There’s going to be a gap between the rhetoric and reality for many aged-care staff who find they miss out because their particular aged-care provider is not able to fund these new targets,’ Mr Laverty said.

Industry body Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) said the four-year compact would be a ‘non-event’ in achieving the government’s stated goal of boosting the aged-care workforce.

LASA chief Patrick Reid accused the government of ‘just dressing up wages’.

‘Currently we’ve got 350,000-odd workers in aged care – we need to triple that out to 800,000 or 900,000,’ he said.

But just redistributing funds which otherwise would go to clients merely meant fewer of them would get services.

‘It’s as simple as that,’ Mr Reid said.

Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said increasing the aged-care workforce was a joint challenge.

‘The government can’t solve it alone,’ he told reporters, adding the aged-care budget had risen by 70 per cent since 2010.

At the same time the gross earnings of providers had risen on average by 22 per cent annually for the past three years.

Yet employee expenses rose by only about 5 per cent annually, providing employers with ‘some capacity’ to pay workers more.

‘Providers need to reflect very carefully on what their decision is in response to this,’ Mr Butler said.

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