Aged care trinkets don't make up for long term neglect
Responding to PM Scott Morrison's announcement of two $400 retention payments for aged care staff, HSU National President Gerard Hayes said:
"This payment is a pre-election political strategy rather than a serious plan to fix the chronic underpayment of the nation's most deserving workers.
"We have a sustained crisis that has been brewing for years. Yet all we get is more short term political management, more kicking the can down the road, more denial of reality. When will this Government grow up?
"Wages are the great unresolved crisis in aged care. The Royal Commission acknowledged this when it said the Government should support the HSU case for a pay rise. But it seems the hard working aged care workers who look after our elderly are just a political problem to be deferred for a few more months.
"If the Commonwealth was serious about dealing with this problem it would support the HSU case for a 25 per cent wage rise. Until it does, aged care workers will vote with their feet and keep leaving the industry. Why would you earn as little as $21 an hour for physically and emotionally demanding work when you can earn more stacking shelves? Until the Commonwealth Government commits to pay aged care workers a decent wage this crisis will only get worse.
"Mr Morrison's latest ploy is cheap and nasty.. We're into our third year of this pandemic and an exhausted aged care workforce is barely holding on."
Gerard Hayes 0417 275 821
