federal election

Workers win as Morrison handily turfed

May 26, 2022 by Rayan Calimlim Leave a Comment

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has celebrated the rejection of the Morrison government as a win for workers.

The ACTU had been campaigning over the past few years against the former Prime Minister’s refusal to act on the crises which have enveloped our country, including stagnant wage growth, insecure work and cost of living concerns.

Their campaign, led and executed by thousands of workers around the country, focused on conversations between colleagues in workplaces, over the phone and on social media about the failure of the Morrison Government to deliver for working people. This resulted in the Liberal and National Parties collectively losing at least 17 seats in Saturday’s poll.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association’s (NSWNMA) campaign to fix aged care also contributed to the loss of the Liberal/National government, with the Association’s campaign targeting five seats which swung against the Liberal Party, and a sixth seat remaining on a knife’s edge.

NSWNMA Acting General Secretary described the win as one for working people.

“Across the country, nurses, midwives and other workers stood up against their unfair treatment by the Morrison government. Today we see hope for a better future for working people,” Candish said.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus echoed Candish’s sentiments.

“Working people have passed judgement on the refusal of the Morrison Government to take action on real wage cuts, insecure work and rising cost of living which working people have struggled through for years under this Government”, McManus said.

“This is a victory for the unionists who stood up against a Government that refused to stand up for them”.

The ACTU also congratulated the incoming Albanese government on their win, saying that they now had a “strong mandate to fight for secure jobs and higher wages”.

Last chance for aged care

April 7, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

This federal election is an opportunity to fix the fundamental weaknesses in the aged care sector. All NSWNMA members can play a role as we pressure all political parties to address the issues we have been campaigning on for more than a decade.

What has come to light over the last two COVID-filled years about the state of aged care has been terrifying.

Even before COVID, the aged care sector was in a profound crisis. The consequences of that neglect have been tragic and deadly.

Since the pandemic arrived on our shores, over 15,000 aged care residents have caught the virus and more than 1700 of them have died from COVID. Over 18,000 staff have been infected.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was clear about the fundamental weaknesses of the system, which left residents and staff exposed.

“Quality and safety cannot be achieved without the sector having enough staff with the skills and time to care,” it said in its final report.

It recommended that every residential facility should have at least one registered nurse on site 24 hours a day.

This effectively endorsed the NSWNMA’s stand on the issue prosecuted over more than a decade.

A government incapable of learning

Into the third year of the COVID crisis, despite the warning signs, cautionary tales and failures, the Morrison government has consistently failed to learn the most obvious lessons.

Inconceivably, more than 700 aged care residents died in the first six weeks of this year.

NSWNMA members and residents are still exposed and vulnerable to new variants such as Omicron and subvariant BA-2, said Assistant General Secretary Shaye Candish.

“Our members are reporting a staffing crisis, a lack of access to suitable PPE and substandard infection-control practices. Some aged care facilities are being forced to ration rapid antigen tests, only using them every 72 hours because of limitations to supply,” she said.

Shaye said that after decades of commissions, inquiries and reports, it’s now or never if real change is to be won in the sector.

“It is only nurses’ commitment and goodwill that has held our aged care system together, and it will be our collective actions that can bring change.

“Without pressure we won’t get the changes we need to see, just another level of bandaids. We need to make sure all the political parties understand that this is a voting issue in their communities in this federal election,” she said.

The election should be a referendum on aged care

Shaye said the ANMF and the NSWNMA have started a paid advertising campaign leading up to the election, highlighting the parlous state of the sector and presenting our solutions to fix it.

Members will also be active on the ground and in social media, pushing our case out to the community, she said.

“Nurses have been vocal and active for a long time fighting and advocating for residents and their families. COVID has confirmed the truth of that campaign. Now we need to make one last push to force whoever becomes the government to do the right thing by our elderly.”

We are not alone. Many others in the sector see the election as a time for accountability and change.

Aged care researcher Dr Sarah Russell said the “lack of leadership” and the “hands-off approach” of the federal government and its regulator during the pandemic “has had heartbreaking consequences for many residents and families around the nation”.

“Sooner or later, our federal government must be held to account for the numerous preventable tragedies that have occurred in the aged care sector.

A dereliction of duty

April 7, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

At every stage of the pandemic, the Morrison government has failed to learn from its many mistakes and has never produced an effective plan for aged care that would protect our vulnerable elderly.

In October 2020 the aged care royal commission produced a special report on COVID-19 and aged care.

It was scathing of the government’s lack of a dedicated plan or clear leadership in the handling of the emergency, despite aged care residents being identified as a high-risk group.

Before COVID-19 hit Australia, evidence was mounting overseas that the coronavirus was taking a disproportionate toll on aged care residents. More than half of the deaths in many European countries and in many American states were residents of nursing homes.

Despite these warnings, when COVID-19 arrived in Australia the aged care sector was woefully unprepared – with tragic and devastating consequences.

On 4 March 2020, Dorothy Henderson Lodge became Australia’s first COVID-19 cluster, after one of its employees contracted the virus. Three of its residents were among the first four people in Australia to die from the coronavirus.

In April 2020, 37 residents tested positive and 19 of them died in a COVID outbreak at Newmarch House – an aged care facility in Sydney – after a staff member worked a shift while infectious.

By the end of 2020 there were 685 deaths from COVID in aged care facilities.

No-one in charge

In its COVID report, the aged care commissioners said the government’s actions had been insufficient to ensure the sector was fully prepared for the pandemic.

It also said it was surprising that the circumstances of the Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House outbreaks had not been investigated.

All too often, the commissioners said, families, providers and aged care workers “did not have an answer to the critical question: Who is in charge?”

The report made clear the government’s response to the pandemic in nursing homes was developed largely without input from aged care experts. That included the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF).

Counsel assisting the royal commission pointed to the lack of consultation with aged care workers’ representatives in April and May, during the development of a visitors’ code for COVID-19.

They also cited the federal Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce, which had 13 members but none of whom represented aged care workers.

Bungled vaccine rollout

When effective vaccines were developed at the end of the pandemic’s first year, hopes were high that they would afford protection for aged care residents and staff.

In February 2021, Health and Aged Care Minister Greg Hunt and Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck gave a joint media conference and promised that aged care workers would be the highest priority and would receive easy access to vaccines in their workplace.

They promised that they would all be vaccinated within six weeks of the rollout’s commencement on 22 February.

But federal Department of Health data showed that by the end of June, two-thirds of aged care staff nationally had not received a single dose of vaccine.

Promised in-reach teams failed to materialise and workers were forced to use leftover Pfizer vaccinations not used on residents.

The government also promised to set up pop-up vaccination centres for workers, which did not eventuate for months and then only in a handful of locations.

The government then told aged care staff to secure their own vaccinations, either from their GP or from a public vaccination hub.

Another 282 aged care residents died from COVID in 2021.

Always too little, too late

In the first six weeks of 2022, 742 people died in aged care homes across Australia. The outbreak of Omicron peaked in late January, when the virus was reported in more than 1200 aged care homes around the country.

Experts highlighted two government failures that left aged care residents and staff vulnerable: the “stroll out” of vaccine boosters and the scarcity of rapid antigen tests.

Dr Kerryn Phelps was one of the authors of the OzSAGE report that was scathing of the federal and NSW governments’ “Let it rip” strategy implemented immediately prior to the outbreak of Omicron.

She told The Guardian that “the only example Australia is providing to the world now is a warning about what not to do with the COVID-19 pandemic”.

What we want in aged care and what the parties are offering

April 7, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

No more talking, no more taskforces, no more inquiries, no more deferring responsibility: Australia needs a government that will take decisive action to fix an aged care sector in severe crisis.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s Final Report made 148 recommendations for wide-scale reform of the aged care system, following its shocking discovery of widespread neglect and systemic failings across the sector.

Central to the report’s recommendations for guaranteeing quality and safety for all elderly Australians was its recognition that the aged care workforce is the most important part of the system.

The commission also said safe, quality care will not be achieved across the sector without having enough staff with the skills and time to care.

The Morrison government responded to the Royal Commission report by committing to implementing a number of its recommendations.

However, the ANMF and the NSWNMA are concerned that five areas that are critical to guaranteeing quality and safety across the sector have either been ignored or not accepted in full by the government.

“The consequence of the failure to address these areas is that too many elderly Australians will continue to needlessly suffer,” said ANMF Secretary Annie Butler.

“The workforce endeavouring to care for them will continue to feel abandoned and undervalued, and exhausted beyond redemption, and will be forced to leave the sector.

“Our members report that despite the government’s promise of wide-scale aged care reform there has been little or no alleviation of the fundamental staffing crisis across the sector and that many of them feel they can no longer endure the lack of respect afforded to them and those in their care.”

What the ANMF/NSWNMA is seeking from the incoming government:

There are five issues critical for ensuring quality and safety across aged care:

1. Registered nurse presence on site at every nursing home across Australia, 24 hours per day, and across all shifts – day, evening and night shifts.

2. Immediate implementation of a minimum staff time standard for at least 200 minutes of care per resident per day for the average resident, with at least 40 minutes of that staff time provided by a registered nurse.

3. An uplift in legislated minimum care hours to at least 215 minutes of care per resident per day for the average resident, with at least 44 minutes of that staff time provided by a registered nurse from 1 July 2023.

4. Legislated transparency and accountability measures for use of taxpayers’ funding, which guarantee that funding is tied directly to care provision and staffing levels.

5. Wage increases and improvements in conditions for the aged care workforce, commencing with support and a commitment to fund the 25 per cent wage increase being sought in the current work value case before the Fair Work Commission.

Where the parties stand on AGED CARE

Coalition

Following the royal commission’s final report, the federal government announced a $17.7 billion injection of funding into aged care.

The five areas identified by the ANMF as critical to guaranteeing safety and quality across the sector were either ignored or not accepted in full by the government.

The government did acknowledge “the direct link between staffing levels and the quality of aged care for residents”.

Labor

Leader Anthony Albanese has said:

“Fixing aged care will be a central priority of an Albanese Labor government.”

He promised an election policy that will address the priorities set out in the ANMF/NSWNMA aged care pledge (see box).

He also said, “We absolutely need minimum staffing ratios in residential aged care.”

The Greens

a registered nurse on site 24 hours/day
the immediate implementation of legislated minimum care hours as  per the ANMF recommendation
Legislated transparency and accountability measures
A 25 per cent wage increase for all nurses and care workers in aged care.

Albanese promises our elderly hope and respect

April 7, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

Opposition leader makes aged care the centrepiece of ALP federal election policy in his budget reply speech.

In January Opposition leader Anthony Albanese signed the ANMF/NSWNMA pledge to support positive reform in aged care.

As The Lamp goes to print he has built on that pledge with a concrete aged care policy that will be a pillar of the party’s election manifesto.

Albanese has committed an ALP government to mandate staffing ratios by introducing, in law, requirements for minimum care hours in nursing homes and to fund real wage increases for all aged care workers.

With a delegation of 10 ANMF aged care members watching on in Federal Parliament, he announced that, if elected, an ALP government would implement the critical recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

These recommendations required a registered nurse on site 24/7 in residential care with a mandated minimum of 215 minutes of care per resident per day.

They were recommendations that the Morrison government chose to ignore in its response to the Commission’s final report.

Labor will support significant pay increases in aged care

The ALP has also pledged support for significant pay increases for aged care workers.

The ANMF is party to a case before the Fair Work Commission (FWC) that is pushing for a 25 per cent pay increase for aged care workers. This was another reform advocated by the Royal Commission into Aged Care.

Anthony Albanese, as part of the ALP’s election policy, has pledged to respect the decision of the FWC and to fully fund it.

ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler welcomed the opposition’s policy announcement.

“We have known what the real problems in aged care are for years, but despite dozens of reports, inquiries, investigations and even a Royal Commission all saying the same thing, no one as been prepared to address these core problems,” she said.

“After years of inaction, we may finally have a plan to fix the core problems underlining the crisis in aged care.”

A stark difference between the parties on aged care

Annie Butler says there is now a stark difference between the two main political parties on aged care policy.

“The Morrison Government was given a road map for reform more than a year ago by its own Royal Commission but failed to act on the Commission’s critical recommendations. Instead of overseeing desperately needed improvements, in the year that has elapsed, the Government has overseen a deepening crisis across the sector.

In announcing his party’s policy Anthony Albanese said: “The global pandemic and a Royal Commission have confirmed what so many Australians already knew – our aged care system is in crisis.”

“We’ve all been chilled by stories of unforgivable neglect. Maggots in wounds. People going days without fresh air, a shower, or a change of clothes. Stories of residents lying on the floor, crying out in pain, and nobody is there to help them,” he said.

“It’s no coincidence that COVID swept through some aged care facilities with such deadly force – because for far too long the Liberals have turned a blind eye to operators who put profit ahead of the people in their care.”

He said not only would a Labor government implement the necessary changes to reform the sector it would put in place strict measures of accountability on providers.

“I am determined to see that every single dollar of that investment goes to better care for people.

“We will make residential care providers report – in public and in detail – what they are spending money on. The days of residents going without decent food and clean clothes will come to an end.”

The pillars of Labor’s election policy on aged care

24 hour registered nurse care in every nursing home
A mandated minimum 215 minutes of care per resident per day
Funding real wage increases for aged care workers
Ensuring accountability across the sector
Mandated standards for nutrition in nursing homes.

Coalition resists fairer funding split

April 7, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic may be a once-in-a-century global emergency, but it has exposed longstanding problems and inequities in Australia’s public health system.

The Morrison government is resisting growing calls to reform the way public health care is funded in Australia.

State governments, public hospitals, and nurses’ and doctors’ unions all say reform is needed to withstand pressure placed on the health system by the COVID-19 pandemic and fix underlying weaknesses.

As the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) says, many pandemic-related problems are the result of “longstanding issues that prevent safe, appropriate, effective and affordable care for all Australians.”

The states and territories have called on the federal government to abandon a 6.5 per cent cap on the growth in health funding, which has been blamed for eroding the viability of the hospital system.

They also want total health costs, including those incurred as a result of the pandemic, split 50-50 between the states and Commonwealth.

Under the current arrangement, the federal government contributes only 45 per cent of hospital funding.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has called the current funding arrangement unfair and unsustainable.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt effectively conceded that hospitals are indeed underfunded.

He said, “There is nothing stopping the states and territories matching the Australian Government’s investment in public hospitals and if they did, hospitals would be adequately funded.”

NURSES AND MIDWIVES’ VIEW

The ANMF says the federal government must commit to a permanent 50-50 funding split as part of a commitment to deliver a “high-quality, well-funded and sustainable health and maternity care system.”

The ANMF agrees the 6.5 per cent cap on funding growth should be scrapped “so funding can meet community health needs based on realities on the ground.”

At the same time, the ANMF wants states and territories to reinvest the 5 per cent of ‘freed-up’ funds to improve performance and capacity.

That view is shared by the Australian Medical Association (AMA), which represents doctors.

AMA president Omar Khorshid strongly supported the push for a 50-50 share of hospital costs, but stressed an increase in federal funding should not allow the states to pay less into the system.

“The reality is health care is more expensive because of COVID; that includes things like PPE and testing, and we are likely to be living with these costs for years,” he said.

“And then there is the cost of deferred care, the diagnostics, the surgeries that happen later. There’s an additional cost if cancer is detected and treated later, for example.”

In a federal election statement, the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) also called for funding reform.

The AHHA is the national peak body for public and not-for-profit hospitals, primary health networks, and community and primary healthcare services.

“Expectations of reverting to ‘business as usual’ are unrealistic if health outcome and inequities are to be improved,” the AHHA said.

Increased funding needed to fix a broken system

Health experts, including the ANMF, are calling on the federal government to:

Abandon a 6.5% cap on the growth of health funding so resources can meet community health needs based on realities on the ground.

Commit to a 50-50 funding split between states and the commonwealth to deliver a high-quality, and sustainable health and maternity care system.

Where the parties stand on public health FUNDING

Coalition

The Coalition says it is providing record levels of funding for hospitals,  medicines and Medicare.

It also says it has “taken steps to make private health insurance simpler  and more affordable.”

Despite bungling its response to the pandemic, including failing to secure  enough vaccines and test kits, the Coalition describes its response to COVID-19 as “world leading”.

Labor

Leader Anthony Albanese says:

Labor “will always be better” on health than the Coalition, and promises a “strong, properly funded public health system, with Medicare as its backbone” (The ALP had not released detailed health policies when The Lamp went to print).

In January, Albanese said health workers “are paying the price for some of the most serious public policy failures our country has seen. They are overworked. They are exhausted.

He said Australians “owe it to them (health workers) to study what the pandemic has revealed about the vulnerabilities of our public health system – and strengthen it for the future.”

The Greens

legislate equal funding of hospitals between the Commonwealth and states to put an extra $8 billion into public health
cancel the private health insurance rebate and put the saved $7 billion into the public system
get more tax from big companies and billionaires to expand Medicare to include free dental and mental health care
boost primary health care and preventive measures such as health promotion, disease prevention, risk reduction and early intervention, in order to manage chronic disease, reduce ill-health and reduce avoidable hospital admissions.