Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering more well-paid, secure jobs for aged-care workers in Australia, including those in the Northern Territory? And how will these plans help deliver more care to older Australians exactly where they need it?

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for the question and his tireless advocacy for older Territorians, for First Nations people and for working people in Darwin and beyond. This Labor government was re-elected to build on its strong record of delivery. When it comes to properly supporting aged-care workers, that's exactly what we're doing.

Just last week we took another major step forward in our delivery of a new residential aged-care home in Palmerston, with the announcement of the preferred provider to build and operate this facility. This 120- to 150-bed project will create hundreds of jobs, expand aged-care capacity in the Territory, take pressure off local hospitals and deliver culturally safe care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders, and we're not wasting a minute getting on with delivering it. It's just one project in the almost billion dollars that this government has invested through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program since 2022 to deliver more aged-care beds and create more well-paid jobs all across our great country.

After a decade of neglect, this united Labor government is putting working people at the centre of everything it does. In aged care, that starts with real wage increases. Hundreds of thousands of aged-care workers, most of them women, are earning more because this government stepped up to support them. To be exact, the average registered nurse in aged care is now earning $28,000 more a year; that's 28 grand more than they were receiving in the nine miserable years under those opposite. That's food on the table, it's rent or the mortgage paid and it's birthday presents for kids.

This is what delivery looks like under a Labor government—a government that values workers and the amazing work they do to care for the ones we love. And it doesn't stop at wages; it's about investing in people's skills, training and long-term careers. Free TAFE, scholarship programs and now paid prac are getting people into a genuinely fulfilling line of work so that older Australians can enjoy the fruits of a secure, well-resourced workforce in aged care that doesn't miss a beat as our population ages.

This is what delivery looks like. While those opposite worry about their own jobs, we're lifting wages for working Australians. While they bicker, we're building skills. And while they focus on themselves, we're delivering the pay rises, skills and new aged-care homes that Australians actually care about. This government backs workers, we back higher wages and we're delivering for every single Australian.