Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Claydon, congratulations on your election to high office. Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the Emmy Monash Aged Care facility in Macnamara with the Minister for Aged Care. We were there meeting with Tanya, the CEO, who has a dedication to her craft and to her profession that brings a culture of real dedication to the residents of Emmy Monash all the way through to the staff there. One of the reasons why we were there was that Emmy Monash is one of the few aged-care facilities around this country that has 24-hour nurses, looking after our aged-care residents around the clock. These nurses are there to provide the medical care that our residents need, not so that they have to get disrupted and move into emergency departments, as is often the case, but so that they can get the medical attention that they need right there in the home.

Walking through Emmy Monash, it's pretty clear that it's not a place; it's a home. It's a home for people that is filled with love, care and dedication by those staff. The staff at Emmy Monash, like so many staff around our aged-care facilities, as I know members in this House would recognise, have made a herculean effort throughout this pandemic. They have been working under immense pressure and they are in serious circumstances, but finally the staff in our aged-care sector will have a government that has their back and that will support them and give them the much needed pay rise that they deserve.