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

I thank the member for her question and for how diligently she represents the people of Canberra, particularly the 78,000 taxpayers in her electorate of Canberra who will be receiving a tax cut today. From day one in government, Labor has been working to deliver our promise to older Australians and the people who care for them: our promise to put nurses back into nursing homes; our promise to make sure all older people have the quality care that they need and that they deserve; our promise to hold providers to account and mandate transparency across the sector; and our promise to deliver a hard-earned pay rise to our dedicated aged-care workers. We are delivering on our promises.

Today, I can share that Australia has achieved another aged-care milestone. Right now, there is a registered nurse on site in aged care 99 per cent of the time across the country in Australia. That's right: 99 per cent of the time across the country a nurse is on duty in an aged-care facility, and older Australians are receiving an additional 3.6 million minutes of care every single day as a result. There has been a reduction in physical restraints, there has been a reduction in the number of falls and there have been reductions in unplanned weight loss, in antipsychotics and polypharmacy, and in pressure injuries.

We are also seeing improvements in our star ratings data, with fewer one- and two-star rated facilities and more four- and five-star rated facilities. Workers are being paid more than they ever have been before, after a 15 per cent increase to award wage minimums. Under the Albanese government, registered nurses are now taking home an additional $196 every single week, or more than $10,000 dollars. Personal care workers are taking home an additional $141 per week, or $7,300 every single year.

I have heard from aged-care workers across the country about the hugely positive changes that these increases are having, both on the quality of care that they are able to deliver to the aged-care residents that they love and on the cost-of-living pressures they are facing in their own household. I've heard from Phonecia, I have heard from Chinatsu, I have heard from Dawn, I have heard from Sue, from Jocelyn, from Donna and Michelle—just a handful of the 250,000 aged-care workers who have benefited from a life-changing increase to their minimum award wages funded by the Albanese government.

The pay rise is just the start of our work to support these workers. Starting today, we are giving them a tax cut, we are freezing their PBS medicine costs, we are delivering $300 power bill relief and we are increasing paid parental leave. That's how you deliver cost-of-living relief, not by pushing up the power prices with nuclear reactors.

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