October 9, 2024

the greens

Vote for the candidates that have committed to ratios

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The NSW state election is this weekend and pre-polling is already open.

We’re encouraging people to vote for candidates who have committed to support nurses and midwives by implementing shift-by-shift nurse-to-patient ratios.

Last week, nurses and midwives held rallies outside hospitals across the state, urging locals to use their vote at the state election to support the introduction of safe staffing ratios in public hospitals.

This comes after the Association took legal action against the State of NSW, alleging systemic non-compliance with the current nursing hours per patient day (NHPPD) staffing system. Based off data from the Ministry of Health, we estimate there are close to 500,000 missing nursing hours over the past 4 years.

It’s clear the current system is broken and needs to be replaced.

See how the parties stack up when it comes to supporting nurses and midwives this election.

The Liberal/National government has no plan to fix the broken staffing system or give nurses and midwives a fair pay increase. They keep using the same tired lines about how the current system works, ignoring the thousands of nurses and midwives calling out for help. They think they know better than the people on the ground doing the job.

Labor, The Greens and key Independent MPs and candidates have committed to a new shift-by-shift staffing system and scrapping the wages cap.

We have commitment videos from 88 candidates, pledging their support to implement better working conditions and fair pay for nurses and midwives; these candidates deserve our support.

Vote for ratios at this state election. Nurses and midwives, and our patients, deserve better.

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.

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

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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.

Coalition resists fairer funding split

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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.

 

Pay battles expose Coalition’s contempt for wage justice

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Be it health care in NSW or aged care nationwide, Liberal/National governments are determined to keep wages low.

Liberal/National Party Coalition governments have a mean streak when it comes to fair pay in aged care.

In 2012, the Gillard Labor government committed $1.2 billion to address aged care workforce issues, including specific funding for wage increases.

However, in 2014 the Abbott government abolished the measure, despite warnings from the Aged Care Financing Authority. Instead, it told aged care providers to bring in more temporary migrant workers.

Fast forward to 2022 and another federal Coalition government is displaying a similar contempt for wage justice.

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is currently considering a union application for a 25 per cent wage increase for aged care workers. Aged care employers have told the FWC they also support a pay rise but haven’t specified how much.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese says his government will also make a submission to the FWC supporting a pay increase if Labor wins the election.

The Morrison government alone refuses to support a permanent pay rise. Instead, it hopes aged care workers will be satisfied with two one-off payments of $400.

This is a rejection of the aged care royal commission’s call for higher wages in the sector last year.

As Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten said, “If Mr Morrison was fair dinkum, he’d turn up at the Fair Work Commission, the independent umpire of wages, and support increasing the base rate per hour. If we don’t do that, we’re going to see a flight of aged care workers into hospo, into retail, into Bunnings, and nothing ever changes.”

In NSW, Scott Morrison’s counterparts in Macquarie Street have shown a similar disregard for wage justice for nurses and midwives.

The NSW Coalition Government gave nurses and midwives an insulting 0.3 per cent increase in the first year of the pandemic and a 1.5 per cent pay rise in 2021.

As NSWNMA General Secretary Brett Holmes said, “Not only is this offer disrespectful of our hardworking members, but it also sends a message to any nurses and midwives entering the public health sector that they are not valued by their employer.”

Such paltry increases also make no economic sense.

A study by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute found that blocking pay rises for essential workers “is not just morally questionable – it’s also a major economic mistake”.

“The motivation for public sector wage austerity seems more ideological than fiscal or economic. Our research shows these arbitrary pay freezes are both unfair and economically counterproductive,” said Dr Jim Stanford, the lead author of the study.

Even the Reserve Bank of Australia says improved wages remain central to any recovery from the pandemic.

For years, the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, has said wages growth in Australia needs to “have a three in front of it” for spending to pick up and our economy to prosper.

Dr Andrew Charlton, a key economic adviser for the Rudd government when it crafted its stimulus package in response to the Global Financial Crisis, said keeping wages low is “precisely the opposite direction economic policy needs to be headed to achieve the government’s goal of supporting economic recovery.”

Where the parties stand on WAGES

Labor promises to:

make a submission to the Fair Work Commission supporting a pay increase for aged care workers if it wins government

legislate to criminalise wage theft – the deliberate underpayment or non-payment of wages, which disproportionately impacts young people, women, overseas students and migrant workers. A 2019 report estimated the underpayment of Australian workers’ entitlements at $1.35 billion per year including $220 million in “healthcare and social assistance”

ensure that workers employed through labour hire companies receive no less than workers employed directly.

The Greens support:

raising the minimum wage to at least 60 per cent of the full-time adult median wage so workers can afford to meet their basic needs

giving workers the right to engage in industrial action, including the right to strike, consistent with international law and not limited to artificially restricted bargaining periods

giving workers the right to engage in collective bargaining on any matter relevant to their social, economic and environmental interests.

Coalition:

The Coalition government imposed a 12-month pay freeze on federal government employees in 2020.

Its latest wage policy is to ensure that Commonwealth public sector wage rises do not exceed wage rises in the private sector.

The Liberal and National parties promise to continue “tackling union lawlessness and thuggery”.

Tax avoidance rife despite COVID burden

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Big corporations have too much power over Australia’s tax system, leaving the government with less resources to fund health and aged care, critics say.

“When a nurse is paying more tax than a multinational company, something is deeply wrong.”

So said Greens leader Adam Bandt when launching his party’s plan to clamp down on corporate tax dodging in November.

The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the Greens’ plan would claw back around $4.5 billion for the public purse, Bandt said.

In December, The Guardian revealed that 168 of Australia’s biggest companies had paid no tax since 2013, despite reaping profits totalling more than $9.85 billion.

They include household names such as property developer Lendlease and the Australian arms of multinationals, including oil and gas major Chevron and German engineering and technology group Bosch.

ATO deputy commissioner Rebecca Saint told The Guardian there were “legitimate reasons why a company may not pay tax”.

The Guardian said some companies, including Lendlease, are part of property trust groups, where paying tax is the responsibility of the investor rather than the company.

Other companies that paid no tax, such as subsidiaries of BHP and Rio Tinto, are members of corporate groups where another entity pays their taxes for them.

SHIFTING DEBT

Under the Greens’ plan, multinational companies would be barred from artificially shifting debt to Australia to increase tax deductions.

The plan would also stop tax deductions for royalties paid to other arms of the same company.

Research by economists from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen has highlighted the extent to which multinational firms shift profits to tax havens to reduce their tax bills.

The research cited the example of Google, which in 2017 reported US$23 billion (A$31 billion) in revenue in Bermuda, a small island in the Atlantic. Bermuda’s corporate income tax rate is zero.

In 2018, the researchers estimated that Australia was losing 10 per cent of its corporate tax revenue, or almost US$7.6 billion (more than A$10.2 billion) through use of tax havens.

However, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, a global coalition of civil society and labour groups, is pushing governments to do more to tackle tax avoidance, “end the era of tax havens”, and stop the “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation.

PAYING FOR COVID

Around the world, the COVID pandemic has led to major increases in government spending and debt to support health, incomes and employment.

The commission says corporate tax avoidance has left governments with fewer resources to cover the costs of dealing with the pandemic.

The commission adds that reductions in company tax “to stimulate reconstruction investment” will be neither economically effective nor socially desirable.

In Australia, critics of the tax system insist that big corporations have too much power.

“They seem to write their own rules,” Bandt says.

“Take, for example, ExxonMobil Australia, which booked $56 billion in total income over the last six years.

“Each and every year, they reduced their taxable income to $0, mostly through a web of deductible payments to other arms of the same company.”

Obscene levels of corporate tax avoidance

Of Australia’s biggest companies, 168 had paid no tax since 2013 despite reaping profits totalling more than A$9.85 billion.

Australia was losing 10 per cent of its corporate tax revenue or almost US$7.6 billion (more than A$10.2 billion) through use of tax havens.

Exxonmobil Australia made A$56 billion in income over the last six years and reduced their taxable income to $0.

Where the parties stand on TAX

 Coalition

Stage-three tax cuts planned to take effect in 2024–25 will remove the 37 cents in the dollar tax bracket, lower the 32.5 cent bracket to 30 cents, and raise the top tax bracket to start at $200,000 compared with $180,000 now.

The Australia Institute, the Australian Council of Social Service and others say the tax cuts are highly regressive and would pay male beneficiaries twice as much as women.

They say someone earning $200,000 a year would receive $174 a week in tax relief, or 73 times the benefit of those earning $50,000 who would save just $2.40 a week.

All up, the cuts are estimated to cost about $184 billion over the first decade.

Labor

The ALP will retain the Morrison government’s legislated stage three tax cuts, which favour high income earners.

It has dumped proposed changes to negative gearing that were taken to the 2016 and 2019 elections.

Labor sources have argued that changing the stage-three tax cuts to make people earning over $180,000 pay more tax would raise too little revenue for the political backlash it could generate.

The Greens

“Every dollar of tax that the government fails to get from a multinational is an extra dollar they have to either take from an Australian worker or cut from schools and hospitals,” say the Greens.

They are pushing for:

  • a new corporate super-profits tax of 40 per cent on big companies
  • an extra 6 per cent wealth tax on billionaires
  • a mega-profits tax on big corporations earning more than $100 million annually
  • a crackdown on multinational tax avoidance.
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