Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, you would know full well that I have very intimate knowledge of the aged-care sector as the former assistant secretary of United Voice, one of the key aged-care unions in this country. Prior to coming to the Senate, I spent probably three years of my working life intimately involved with the Living Longer, Living Better package. It was the most amazing transformation. As a longstanding former union official, it was very hard at times to get complete agreement between employers and unions—as you would know, Mr Acting Deputy President—but, in the Living Longer, Living Better package, the unions and the whole of the aged-care sector managed to present to the Labor government and to the minister at the time, Minister Butler, a package of amendments that we thought the aged-care sector needed. We did that as a group who came together under an association called the National Aged Care Alliance.

It has an interesting history because the only other time that employers and unions in this sector came together was when the Howard government was in power and Bronwyn Bishop, as the aged-care minister, managed to unite the whole sector against her. The National Aged Care Alliance, of which United Voice was a member—and I was the representative on that body for a significant period of time—formed because of the mean-spirited kinds of reforms we saw under the Howard government.

The National Aged Care Alliance brings together almost every body working right across the aged-care sector. Whether it is the nursing home sector, home care, physiotherapy or any of the attendant services, they all are members of the National Aged Care Alliance. When the Labor government came into power, that alliance saw an opportunity for real change. As we know, we have an ageing population and new generations of people want to be cared for at home, as indeed older and past generations wanted to be cared for at home. As a sector, we also knew that, whilst there are very fine aged-care facilities in our community and fabulous community care services, there are just not enough of them. We knew that was a critical issue. We also knew that low-paid aged-care work was a critical issue.

It was absolutely amazing to see employers coming together with unions such as United Voice to say to a Labor government, 'We have to act on wages. If we do everything else in the package, including delivering more facilities and more options for home care and all of the other wonderful reforms that came out of Living Longer, Living Better but we don't address the wages, we've done nothing. We won't be able to deliver real reform.' The sector came together and worked together for two or three years. We had the Productivity Commission inquiry into aged care, which all of us worked extremely hard on, putting submissions in and meeting with the commissioners. They addressed the National Aged Care Alliance on three or four occasions. The Productivity Commission really took the National Aged Care Alliance recommendations to heart. We produced an agreed list of recommendations. There were 20 or 30—I cannot remember the precise number, but they were all agreed. They included addressing the low-paid wages of aged-care workers right across the spectrum.

You might ask, quite rightly, why the wages are so low. Of course, historically this is a sector that has women workers. Most of the workforce are women and, historically, women's wages have remained behind those of men in equivalent roles in our community. Certainly during my involvement in the late 1980s, believe it or not, aged-care wages were then parallel with those in other sectors. However, over time, because of women's well-documented inability to bargain as successfully as male counterparts and also because they were in a sector where there is not a lot of spare cash around, despite having a very long history of bargaining—and most of the major employers in the aged-care sector in Australia are covered by enterprise bargaining agreements—they sit barely above the award, by $1 or $2. That is because there is not a lot of fat in the system. It is not an industry that runs on big profits, although there are profits there. It is hard slog when you have to sit down and face individual employers across the negotiating table to try to get a better outcome for members. The award rate is about $18, $19, $20 an hour for an aged-care worker. Of course, what adds to their take-home pay, as you would know, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, are penalty rates. Penalty rates are an absolute critical part of an aged-care worker's take-home pay, because they work outside normal hours and unsocial hours, they work on Saturdays and Sundays, and they miss out on time with their families, for which they receive a penalty payment.

We know that the Abbott government has an agenda to get rid of penalty rates in this country. We already have a crisis concerning workers in this country, particularly in the aged-care workforce. Imagine if you earn $20 an hour and, on average, you work 30 hours a week, because aged-care workers are not full-time workers, you could not survive. We would see a mass exodus of workers from that sector, if the government is successful in getting its agenda of getting rid of penalty rates up and running. The government is out there in the hospitality industry, trying to make that the first cab off the rank. We know that the retail sector is under threat and then there is aged-care and all the other areas where Australian workers earn penalty rates, as they should. If you give up a Sunday, when your family is out enjoying each other's company, to supplement a very meagre income you should be entitled to a penalty payment.

I need to put on the record, because I would not want the government to start jumping up and down, that Labor is not opposing these bills. But we do believe that the government has gone way too far in what it is doing.

Whilst the sector, including the unions, were negotiating and coming up with an agreed set of recommendations on the Living Longer, Living Better package, the then opposition were completely missing in action. They were nowhere to be seen. In the end, they supported the measures because, at least, they recognised that we have a problem because we have an ageing population. However, I can absolutely say to you that during all of the discussions and consultations we had when the National Aged Care Alliance drew up its agreed package, the opposition were nowhere to be seen. They took no interest at all in a very significant issue in this country, aged care.

It is fair to say that the National Aged Care Alliance did not get everything that we wanted. But as those of us who have had lives as union officials know, sometimes—in fact, many times—you do not always get everything you want. But we did get up a package of amendments that we continued to support. They included a better pay for aged-care workers. As a union official, it was one of my proudest moments to hear employers advocating really strongly to the Labor government that it had to act on wages. Why? Because, after 20 years or more of bargaining in the aged-care sector, we were not able to lift the wages to a wage that would provide a good-living income.

So as a sector, not just the unions—and we know how the Abbott government likes to really bash unions; at every opportunity it likes to bash unions—we said to government that this was an agreed position. This was the position of the National Aged Care Alliance. It was the position of all of the major employers in the country that government needed to provide a supplement. That supplement—significant amounts of money, all paid for, put in the budget, all there—would have provided about 30c an hour on an aged-care worker's hourly rate. That is not a huge amount of money, but that would have lifted that base rate to enable bargaining to add more to that. It was not a one-off. It was there to say, 'Let's make the hourly rate a certain level'—it was about 30c an hour more than aged-care workers were getting—and that just lifts the floor so that employers can continue to build on that. It creates a lift, and that is what is needed in the aged-care sector right across the sector. That lift was needed.

If the Abbott government want to say that it was some dirty deal between a few employers and a few unions in the sector, they are completely wrong. When we got down to the nuts and bolts of the issue—and, before I get on to that, I would like to say that most unions would say that the Productivity Commission is probably not a friend of unions, but the Productivity Commission in and of itself said that the aged-care workforce wages were very low. In its document, it also pointed out that, if the government did nothing else around this package, it had to do something about wages. So the recognition was there from the employers, from the Productivity Commission and from the unions that wages had to be a central part of a Living Longer, Living Better package.

The Labor government's budget put the aged-care supplement money in place. Again, the Labor government did not seek to dictate to the sector about how that money would be apportioned. It set the challenge for the unions and the employers, through their associations, to sit down under the auspices of an industrial commissioner and work out how to do that. Sure, we had some arguments, but we all know that, when you negotiate, you win some and you lose some, and there are some fierce arguments along the way. But, again, we came out with an agreed position. We came out with an agreed position because the sector itself, employers and unions, was committed to doing something about aged-care workers.

But again we see, of course, that the Abbott government, with its ideological push, its hatred of unions and its belief through its Tea Party agenda that individuals need to look after themselves, just wants to take all of that good work away. All of that process agreed by employers and unions, all of those agreed and hard negotiations that we did with the support of an industrial commissioner—all of that it just wants to throw away. It wants to go back to a system which has failed in the past. We know that under the Abbott government we had a system where additional funds were put through an instrument called COPO, and it was supposed to go to workers. And guess what, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle? I am sure you would not be surprised to learn that not one cent of that money ever found its way into a worker's pocket.

If the government needs another example, it only needs to look at the disability sector in Western Australia, where the Barnett government made provision for additional wages to be given to disability services workers, but again it was not through any transparent legislative process but just through direct funding to employers. I can tell you that that has left a very sour taste in the mouths of disability workers—who, believe it or not, are paid even less than aged-care workers—because not one cent of that money went to workers. It went to cars. It went to CEOs. But it certainly did not go to workers.

Aged-care employers in this country signed up to a designated hourly rate, and it was completely above board. But we know that just putting the money out there and not requiring any transparency and any accountability will mean that the money will not go into workers' pockets. Alternatively, it will go into one area of the workforce. The unions in this sector do not always agree, but what the unions did agree on was that the supplement should be distributed fairly to all of the sector—not just to nurses, not just to aged-care workers but to everyone in the sector—because that is a fair way. Everyone's wages need to be lifted. But, now, if some of this money does find its way to the pockets of workers, you could reward a manager of your aged-care facility. They could receive all of this money. There is no guarantee at all that, first, the money will get there and that, second, it will go to the lowest paid.

So we will continue to see under the Abbott government an exodus of quality workers. Many of the aged-care nurses and aged-care staff who are members of United Voice are amazing people who do the most dedicated job of caring for aged-care people in our community, some of the most vulnerable people in the community. These workers sit with people in their dying moments. These workers have the most vulnerable people in our community dying in their arms. That happens on a weekly basis. The last moments, the last breaths, of those in our community in their twilight years are witnessed by low-paid aged-care workers.

The Abbott government are so mean and so ideologically driven that they will not sign up to something that Labor put in place. That is the reason that they will not sign up to it; Labor put it in place. But if they have an issue with that, let us look at the history of this. It was the National Aged Care Alliance who really pushed for these changes. Yes, Minister Butler was a very popular minister and a minister who listened and who cared. Unfortunately, we are not seeing any of that now. So the aged-care workforce will continue to be low paid and will continue to have a very high turnover, at a time when our seniors should be guaranteed that the staff that they get to know, and who love them and whom they love in return, are going to stay there.

But the government do not care. As I say, they were completely absent during the whole of the time that we were negotiating the Living Longer, Living Better package. To take that funding away from the workforce is a disgrace—and the workforce will not forget that. They know who promised them a fair deal. They know that it was Labor who promised a fair deal. And they know who has taken the money out of their pockets.

This cruel attack on these low-paid workers comes on top of the freezing of superannuation. So this group of workers have low retirement savings, but the Abbott government wants to make them lower. So, in the future, this group of workers will be more reliant on benefits from the government, instead of being able to stand on their own two feet—one, with a better wage in aged care, which the Abbott government has stolen from them; and, two, with decent superannuation savings, which the Abbott government has also stolen from them. Talk about not thinking for the future!

I have had a lot of correspondence from aged-care employers in Western Australia about the removal of the payroll tax supplement. That has hit them hard. Certain parts of this sector are doing well but in other areas many providers are doing a very good service and not making huge profits—and, I would argue, they should not anyway—and losing that payroll supplement has hurt. So, again, we see an Abbott government with no clear policy on aged care—just its same old, same old, 'Let's attack workers; let's hit them in the pockets; and let's just give this money to employers and they can use it as they wish.' It is a disgraceful move.