The trends are terrible but they are going to get even worse the longer we have a Perrottet government.

A recent report by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work analysing the impact of the state government’s wage caps over the last decade makes for sober reading

The report estimates that, compared to long-run pre-cap wage trends, experienced nurses and midwives made $335 less per week in 2021-22. That is $17,500 less per year.

On a cumulative basis they have lost $80,000 since the caps were introduced.

The news gets worse, according to the report. If the Perrottet government stays in office beyond the March state election this “pay suppression” will get much larger if the caps remain in place.

And they will stay in place if the government is reelected and maintains its current intransigent position.

By 2023-24, the report says – factoring in the government’s stated plan to cap wages growth to 3 per cent and 3.5 per cent – the loss in wages will grow to $390 per week or over $20,000 per year.

Cumulative losses for someone who has worked throughout the wage cap period would reach $120,000.

This economic pain will not stop when you retire. Because super-annuation contributions are automatically tied to wages, nurses and midwives have lost thousands of dollars in contributions from their employers. Thousands more have been lost in investment income on those contributions.

There are alternatives

The report shows starkly the brutality of the government’s attack on your standards of living over the last decade.

The government’s meanness over public sector pay stands in stark contrast to other important players in the economic and political realms. The Fair Work Commission has granted a 15 per cent pay increase for aged care workers. The federal government supports this decision. The NSW Labor Party and the Greens have committed to abandoning the wages policy.

The NSW government has also been left behind by the other parties on staffing.

The ALP has committed to intro-ducing an enforceable safe minimum staffing system for nurses and midwives working in public hospitals across NSW.

Enforceable ratios for EDs, ICUs and maternity are significant.  Regional areas too have not been forgotten with MPS services also a part of the commitment.

Labor’s announcement is a signi-ficant injection of hope for those working in the public health system. And it is just the beginning. There will still be a lot more work to be done to resolve staffing issues for all specialty areas.

We have been fighting for ratios for over a decade and we are finally been listened to by everyone except the ones who could make this happen today – the Perrottet government.

Progress to celebrate but vigilance needed

But patience, resilience and commitment eventually prevail as our colleagues in aged care have shown us.

The Albanese government has quickly introduced reforms into parliament that our aged care members themselves describe as “brave and ambitious”.

There has also been an interim 15 per cent pay rise with the possibility of more to come from the work value case that the ANMF prosecuted in the Fair Work Commission.

The federal budget also contained significant increased funding to aged care to facilitate the reforms and the wage increase.

The Federal ALP has honoured its election promises in aged care and we thank them for that.

But even as we celebrate the undoubted progress in aged care we have to remain vigilant – especially against those employers who will try to game the system.

Already we have Southern Cross Care in Tasmania making ENs redundant and replacing them with lower-paid personal care workers despite receiving significant funding increases from the Albanese government.

The Albanese government has voiced its disappointment that when there has been a significant increase in federal funding for care and when there are acute workforce shortages Southern Cross is proposing to terminate the employment of longstanding, experienced and dedicated nursing staff.

There is a lesson here we need to learn: we can never let down our guard and we need to keep employers accountable or there will be a constant erosion of the gains we have fought very hard for.