Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s support for aged care workers pay rise falls short

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has a golden opportunity to show he really cares about the aged care workforce before the Federal election later this year. He was interviewed on ABC’s ‘Insiders’ program on Sunday and reiterated 24 hours later that, if he was Prime Minister, he would make a submission to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) supporting an increase in pay for aged care workers. Labor’s Senior Australians and Aged Care Services Shadow Minister Clare O’Neill went even further in May last year, saying aged workers deserved a “significant” pay rise. However, the Opposition Leader has not backed the unions’ claim for a 25% rise, or stated how much extra the workers should receive. The Health Services Union lodged the 25% pay claim with the FWC, the independent national workplace relations tribunal, in November 2020. Hearings are scheduled for July this year. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his Government would not make a submission to the FWC and criticised Mr Albanese’s stance.

“I haven’t heard how he proposes to fund that,” Mr Morrison said on Tuesday. “I don’t know what he estimates the cost of that will be and how he would work that through. “There’s a process underway and we will let that process follow its course and we’ll, of course, have to absorb any decision that is taken there.”