Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

We're also giving a pay rise to aged-care workers to the value of $11.3 billion. That's an extra 140 bucks a week for personal carers or 200 bucks a week for registered nurses. Giving pay rises to people assists with their cost of living. That's a $14.6 billion package that I was talking about in my comments on Today this morning. This is a budget for middle Australia. That was the question that I was asked this morning. People who represent middle Australia, in the suburbs of Brisbane, have said to me, since Tuesday night, that they're grateful that they've got a government that is prepared to get the balance right between responsible decisions on spending and responsible decisions on saving. I am grateful for the fact that we have managed to find $36 billion in funding for aged care, an industry that has been neglected for nine long years. Aged-care workers are some of the most vulnerable workers in this country who suffer the cost of living first when inflation goes up—inflation being a tax on the poor, and the poor being the kind of people who are in our care economy, who do the best thing by our care economy and who need their budgets to serve them best. That is why we are making a cost-of-living package which does things like cheaper medicines, which does things like Commonwealth rent assistance, which does things like tripling the bulk billing rates for people so it is affordable for them to take their kids to see a doctor, all of which are downward inflationary pressures. (Time expired)

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