October 30, 2024

scott morrison

‘Sports rorts for hospitals’

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The Australian National Audit Office slams the Morrison government for mismanagement of health grants.

A review by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found that a $2 billion Morrison government health and hospitals funding program was “ineffective and fell short of ethical requirements”, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported.

The ANAO found grants were awarded to health projects despite being inconsistent with the rules for awarding Commonwealth funds, and nearly half of all the projects that were funded were in marginal seats.

The SMH said the Health Department “was reduced to monitoring the media to keep track of which projects had been selected for funding by the former Coalition government”.

Independent MP Helen Haines told the SMH the “report shows an appalling abuse of public trust. I am shocked that even our health care could be pork barrelled”.

“This could be sports rorts for hospitals,” she said, referring to a $100 million sports funding program that was also subject to a scathing ANAO review in 2020.

Funding highlighted as problematic by the report included a $4 million grant to the Esther Foundation, which provided counselling services and is now in voluntary administration, a $5 million grant to the Lord Somers Camp, a sporting organisation in Victoria, and a $25 million project to expand the Peel Health Campus in Western Australia in Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s seat.

A victory for aged care  

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The election of a federal Labor government with a coherent plan to fix aged care is a win for the ages for our members in the sector.

 We should not underestimate the significance of the moment: this is a historic achievement for our union.

And hats off to our activists in aged care! They have shown perseverance, resilience, patience and courage on a very long journey to this summit.

Their decade (and more!) of fighting for the rights of our elderly has finally paid off.

Credit must be given to the federal Labor Party for listening to the people working at the frontline of what had been an increasingly dysfunctional sector.

The Albanese government has taken on board the solutions put forward by the ANMF and NSWNMA and committed to funding mandated staffing ratios in private aged care facilities, improving wages for the workforce and making sure taxpayer-funds for providers are tied to direct care for residents.

There are many lessons to be absorbed from this momentous election.

A clear one is that the issues that impact women the greatest have to be recognised and acted on by our governments.

The success of the “teal” women candidates around issues of climate change, integrity and gender equality was striking and Scott Morrison’s tin ear towards numerous high profile incidents of sexual violence was a vote changer for many.

But at a more subterranean level there were also cost of living issues that disproportionately impact on working class women: rising prices, low wages and prohibitively expensive child care.

These are issues that our members are only too familiar with working in predominantly female professions that are undervalued and routinely dismissed by politicians of all hues.

There are also lessons to be learnt and applied in our campaign for ratios in the public health system.

The first lesson is that we can win.  But we need the same grit, determination and stamina that our aged care members have shown. We need to be engaged. We need to stay the course.

The second lesson is that we should have confidence in what we are asking for. Federal Labor didn’t adopt our aged care solutions in an act of altruism. They adopted our solutions because they are the right policies to fix what is a completely broken sector. Aged care is mainly funded by taxpayers’ money and that money should be spent on care.

The third lesson is, like it or not, we have to engage in the political process. We need to convince governments, no matter who they are, that as frontline workers we understand the problems in the public health system and we are central to the solution.

The main argument we are confronted with when dealing with either the Liberals or Labor is the cost of our solutions, especially ratios. They always say they cost too much and they can’t afford it.

The pandemic blew away that specious argument. The cost of not resourcing health properly cost the economy billions of dollars.

Even prior to COVID there was a wealth of empirical research that showed that resourcing health properly was a cost saver.

When Queensland implemented ratios the government commissioned research to track their cost to the Queensland budget. That research showed a cost saving of $80 million in their first year of operation. More importantly 145 lives were saved and nearly 30,000 hospital days were avoided.

This research was consistent with numerous other studies around the world.

It would be a mistake for any government to think that COVID is a one-off. The prospect of future pandemics is real, even inevitable. There are health consequences from climate change that will also increase the demand on public health.

In NSW we will have an election early next year. Before then we need to convince all politicians that we have solutions to the crisis in public health in this state and they need to listen to us.

Implementing ratios will undoubtedly be better for the health of the NSW community but they will also be better for the state’s economy.

Hope for aged care

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It has been a tough few years for aged care but Labor’s election win promises a better future for the troubled sector.

“Together we can fix the crisis in aged care.”

This was one of Anthony Albanese’s key points in his election night speech as Labor swept to victory in the 2022 federal poll.

The new prime minister said his philosophy was “no-one left behind” and “no-one held back”, and that he wanted to see an economy that works for the people of Australia and not the other way around.

Consistent with this commitment was his pledge to support the outcome of the Fair Work Commission for a wage rise for aged care workers.

During the campaign, the ALP made it clear that fixing aged care – and especially staffing – would be a high priority for them in government.

Anthony Albanese said that the Royal Commission recommendation to require a nurse to be on duty 24/7 in residential care was “core to improving clinical care for frail Australians”.

“Nothing will change without reform to the workforce,” he said.

The ALP also promised an additional $2.5 billion for the aged care sector, with strong checks to ensure that the funding was spent on care.

A government with a plan

ANMF Secretary Annie Butler welcomed the election of a new government that was committed to tackling the massive challenges facing the aged care sector and the public health system.

“We are delighted that we finally have a federal government that has a real plan to fix the systemic issues in health and aged care,” she said.

“Mr Albanese and his team, including Mark Butler (Shadow Health and Ageing) and Clare O’Neil (Shadow Senior Australians and Aged Care Services), have listened to the ANMF and have committed to working with us to develop a health workforce that is ready and able to respond to Australia’s health needs.

“In aged care, the ALP has committed to funding mandated staffing ratios in private aged care facilities, improving wages for the depleted workforce and making sure taxpayer-funds for providers are tied to direct care for residents.”

NSWNMA Acting General Secretary Shaye Candish said the election of an Albanese government, with a strong commitment to addressing the crisis in aged care, was a landmark moment for the union.

“It is historic from our perspective because it has been a long fight to bring attention to the calamity that is aged care, let alone to fix it.

“Aged care has been on a long trajectory into crisis since the Howard government’s ill-judged reforms in the 1990s.

“COVID exposed the folly of taking the ‘nursing’ out of nursing homes and the negligence of successive governments that allowed providers to put profit before care.

“Our aged care members have toiled tirelessly for more than a decade to right this wrong and have stood up for the safety and wellbeing of their residents.

“The Association has put a lot of resources – paid advertising, lobbying, and countless grassroots actions – into getting a better deal for Australia’s elderly.

“Finally, we have a government that has listened to us and has a credible plan to rescue the sector.”

Residents are excited too

NSW South Coast aged care AiN Susan Walton says she “can’t describe the feeling of now having hopeful change after all these years. It’s unbelievable that we won’t be forgotten anymore”.

“The road is not finished. We’ll be holding the government to account. We can’t wait three years. We don’t want to be put to the bottom of the pile.”

Susan says she is optimistic about a good outcome from the aged care work review case before the Fair Work Commission.

“The support of the federal government must mean something. It must give it weight.”

Susan says residents are just as excited as staff.

“They know something will happen and their lives will change. They won’t be left alone in their rooms. There will be more staff. They will have more dignity.

“There is more hope in aged care when before we had none.”

What the new federal Labor government has committed to for 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
  • Mandated standards for nutrition in nursing homes
  • Residential care providers must report – in public and in detail – what they are spending government funding on.

Workers win as Morrison handily turfed 

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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”. 

 

ANMF corrects Morrison’s aged care claim

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In response to Scott Morrison’s claim during this week’s Leaders’ Debate that he ‘blew the whistle’ on aged care,  Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Federal Secretary Annie Butler said: “The Prime Minister’s claim is not only astonishing, it’s offensive.

“Aged care nurses and workers have been campaigning to fix the crisis in aged care for years. In 2016 the ANMF presented comprehensive research, which outlined what was needed to fix chronic understaffing in the sector, to the Government – this was ignored. We conducted a cost-benefit analysis, which outlined the costs of implementing safe staffing ratios with increased wages and the benefits that would be gained, and developed an implementation plan to guide the process of addressing the core problems in the sector, which were, again, ignored.

“In June 2018, the Aged Care Workforce Taskforce published its Workforce Strategy, which also outlined solutions to address the core problems in the sector and which was also ignored by Government.

“It was only following the shocking expose on aged care by Four Corners that the Prime Minister finally acted – not to fix the problems in the sector but to, yet again, ‘kick the can down the road’ by calling a Royal Commission into Safety and Quality in Aged Care.

“The Royal Commission’s interim report was titled “Neglect”, encapsulating the Government’s attitude to its responsibilities to care for older Australians. Despite this and, in 2021, a final report which, detailed a system where the extent of substandard care is ‘deeply concerning and unacceptable by any measure’ and provided 148 recommendations for action, the Government failed to act – nothing has changed.

“The Government has had almost a decade to address the worsening situation in aged care. It has failed to deliver.

“The lack of meaningful action from the Morrison Government is causing considerable distress for aged care nurses and care-workers across the country, who have been calling for change in the sector for years but who feel they, and those in their care, older Australians, aren’t valued enough for the Government to even try to fix the crisis in aged care.”

Last chance for aged care

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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.

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