Press Conference, Parliament House, Canberra
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: It's great to be here with my ministerial colleagues, Minister Butler, Minister Plibersek, and Sarah who is a home care worker. This Albanese Labor Government has made gender equality a key issue that we are focused on. And indeed, we have seen the progress that we are making. When we came to government, we were 43rd when it came to the rankings in the world of gender equality. We are now eighth. But there is always more work to do. And of course, key to that has been closing the gender pay gap.
When we first came to government, we made sure that gender equality was at the heart of the Fair Work Act. And we've seen the Fair Work Commission do some really important work in reviewing the awards, particularly in those areas that have a female dominated workforce areas like early education, areas like aged care. And we've seen the Fair Work Commission properly recognise in those sectors the undervalued work that was being performed. They have made decisions, and our government has funded those pay increases.
Importantly, the Fair Work Commission has done further work on two other awards: the Health Services and Professionals Award, and what's known as the SCHADS Award. This covers important work like family and domestic violence, home care providers providing services to older people, to people with disability. And what the Fair Work Commission's review showed is that for too long, the work performed by these workers was undervalued because it was predominantly done by women. What it found was that their experience and that their skills were not being properly recognised. And so, the Fair Work Commission has made an important decision to give many of these workers a substantial pay increase to properly value the work that they are doing.
Now, of course, the Commonwealth does pay many not-for-profit organisations to deliver this work on behalf of government. And so today, the government's announcing that we will fund $630 million to provide top-up money for organisations so that they can deliver these pay increases, but importantly not reduce the services that they provide to Australians. This is a very important commitment by the government to back in the work of the Fair Work Commission and deliver for these workers that have been undervalued for too long. This is a really important decision and goes to the fact that we want to see that gender pay discrepancy reduced.
We have now seen a record low reduction in that gender pay gap. but it's still just over 11 per cent. We need to keep working on this, and this is something that our government is absolutely committed to do. And I'll now pass over to Minister Butler.
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks so much, Amanda, for your leadership in implementing this absolutely core commitment of our Labor Government. That is to improve the gender equity in wage outcomes for Australian women. I think anyone with a passing familiarity with health and community services in this country knows that for decades now, these terrific services have effectively been subsidised by workers working in these sectors taking low wages. And our government has said that that's simply not good enough. And that's why the core commitment in our workplace legislation has led to this outcome, with the workplace relations commission finally deciding to lift the wages of extraordinary workers like Sarah. It's the right thing to do and that's the main reason why we did it. But it also will improve the recruitment and retention of the workforce that we need at a time when demand for these services is going up at a very significant rate indeed.
We've seen, for example, in aged care where we also provided additional funding to reflect the industrial commission's decision to lift wages in that sector, that recruitment and retention has improved dramatically. Every facility I go to tells us that their use of agency staff has diminished. Their ability to recruit permanent staff, which improves continuity of care, has been transformed dramatically by lifting this wage position for those workers. This is the latest instalment in a really important part of our commitment to improve wage justice in Australia, and that's the main reason we're doing it, but also it's going to have a huge benefit for these services to ensure they can get the workforce they need to continue delivering high quality care and support.
The decision today by government to provide additional funding simply means that those organisations, there's about 128,000 of them impacted by today's decision, those organisations will be able to continue to deliver the services they're currently delivering while also being able to pass through the wage increases that have been decided by the commission. And I think that's a terrific outcome for those organisations, but more importantly for the workers who work for them and the clients and the consumers who receive the services. Happy to hand to Tanya.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Thanks very much. It's so wonderful to be here to be able to back in the work of the health and community sector workforce. The best people in the world choose to work in these frontline services. We've got people who are answering the phone in the middle of the night to a woman trying to escape domestic violence, looking for somewhere to go. We've got people who work with young Australians who are homeless, getting them back on their feet, getting them back into education or a job. We've got people who work counselling young children who've grown up in households where there's only ever been violence and neglect. We've got people who work in drug and alcohol counselling services. The sort of workers who will benefit from this pay increase are the workers who are providing food relief in emergencies to Australians who otherwise have nowhere to turn. And so I'm so pleased that our government is able to step up for these people who constantly step up for other Australians, who are there at their most desperate times of need.
As both Amanda and Mark have pointed out, the reason that this work has historically been undervalued is because it's historically been done by women. But these women have families to feed too. So being able to pay them decently for the complex, consequential, difficult work they do is a really important step forward to make sure that we attract and retain those workers into community services and health. It's also an acknowledgement of the importance of the work they do to our community. Thanks.
RISHWORTH: We've got Sarah now. First time.
SARAH, HOME CARE WORKER: First time speaking, so go easy on me. Yeah, so my name's Sarah. I'm a home care worker in the aged care sector. I've been doing the job for three and a half years. We have definitely been undervalued for a long time, well before I started working. Things need to change, things are just getting progressively worse. Our conditions, how can I say it? We have to be available to work a minimum of 72 hours to get 50 hours guaranteed work a fortnight. This stops us from getting a job elsewhere, and also our pay isn't great. We need things to change because we can't help people if we can't help ourselves. Thank you.
RISHWORTH: Questions?
JOURNALIST: Could I ask what the total cost to these sectors was at the Fair Work Commission, and therefore what proportion is this $630 million paying for?
RISHWORTH: Obviously, these awards cover a vast array of workers, and particularly when it comes to the Social and Community Services Award, there was a restructure of the classifications to better recognise the skills. Obviously, some of these services are funded privately, some are funded by state and territory governments, and some are funded by the Commonwealth. What we have done from the Commonwealth is we have stepped up. We have stepped up to deliver for the services that we fund. It will be a matter for states and territories, and we'll work with them around funding that will come from them. But where we directly fund services, we are stepping up and providing this top-up payment.
JOURNALIST: How are you going to pay for the increased funding in a time of tightened spending? We’ve got a couple of different savings measures in the budget that now have question marks as they’re sort of going through the Parliament. So will you have to cut from other services to fund these?
RISHWORTH: Firstly we take a very responsible approach to budget management. We have taken difficult decisions that haven't always been popular when it has come to budget repair and making sure, for example, we're also banking savings. When it comes to this decision though, we have been of course planning for this, and we believe that this decision and making sure that these workers get appropriately paid deserves room in the Budget. Budgets are about priorities, and we believe addressing the undervaluation and underpayment of these workers deserve attention. Equally, we believe in these critical services. We know that, for example, the Leader of the Opposition and Senator Hanson has demeaned many of the essential services that are provided by our health and community workers. Well, our government doesn't do that. We believe, for example, that those fleeing family and domestic violence deserve a service, and we are stepping up to provide this top-up funding to deliver these pay increases.
JOURNALIST: Minister Rishworth, in August your department notified that it’s going to resume suspension or cancellation of welfare payments under two aspects of the Targeted Compliance Framework from 26 October. That deadline is less than two weeks away. Is the department in a position to be able to resume those aspects of the TCF?
RISHWORTH: When it comes to turning back on elements of the Targeted Compliance Framework, that is a matter for the secretary. I expect that the secretary would not take any action until he is fully convinced that the Targeted Compliance Framework can be lawfully administrated.
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, I’ve just got a few questions. Just on the private health legislation, an FOI revealed modelling from your department shows 80,000 people are expected to dump their private health insurance as a result of your proposed changes. Were you being misleading only ever citing 44,000?
BUTLER: The documents that were released by the department in response to that FOI request made it clear that their advice to me and their view very clearly was that the most reliable figure to use was the 44,000 figure that I have been using, on the basis of their advice. And that figure reflects two and a half years of impact of the changes that we're proposing to make. Now, they also indicated that there would be an additional impact beyond that. But the 78,000 figure that you are using is almost four years, it takes us well into the next decade. The figure that I used was the figure advised to me by the department, the one that their FOI response indicates is the most reliable figure.
But let me provide some context here. That figure of 44,000 over two and a half years, or 78,000 into the next decade, should be seen in the context of our view, our modelling, that private health insurance membership will continue to grow. Over that same period, private health insurance membership is projected to grow by 360,000 people, 85 per cent of whom will be over the age of 65. As I've said very clearly here in the Parliament and elsewhere, private health insurance membership will continue to grow strongly. Now, I don't pretend, though, that this isn't a hard decision. But we have to take hard decisions to ensure that we're able to find the funds necessary to fund the expansion of aged care services that I think everyone recognises that we need.
JOURNALIST: Given the Greens say that they won’t support the legislation in its current form, are you open to amending it to get it through the Senate?
BUTLER: We understand we don't have a majority in the Senate and we'll have to engage with Senate parties about this. The Senate inquiry report was delivered last week and we’re considering that report, and also obviously engaging with Senate parties as the legislation starts to move to that chamber.
JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, the biotech industry is enraged by the government’s R&D changes in relation to the supporting R&D, and also the caps put on the years. They’re saying that basically it’s going to threaten stage 3 clinical trials, something you’ve been a big supporter of. Companies are already saying that investors are pulling investment while there’s a question mark over this. Is the government going to actually listen to this feedback and consider further changes to what’s been put forward in the Parliament?
BUTLER: We are, and we've announced those changes. And I want to thank the Treasurer and the Minister for Industry for their engagement in this as well. All of us have been engaged with AusBiotech and with other leaders in this sector, recognising that AusBiotech, or this sector has some particularly unique features. The long lead time in developing and proving up this technology, which is again something that we've responded to in the changes that the Treasurer has announced.
JOURNALIST: But he hasn’t.
BUTLER: We've engaged very closely with the sector to ensure that we're able to shape these changes to tax arrangements in a way that suits that sector.
JOURNALIST: Just back to the private health insurance, will you consider carving out pensioners in order to get the Greens on board?
BUTLER: As I've said, we recognise that we're going to have to engage with Senate parties about this. But I am convinced, and government is convinced, that is the right way forward. It's not an easy change, I recognise that. But what it does is to return the private health insurance rebate changes to their original design, which provided a subsidy to households for private health insurance based on their income rather than based on their age. And what our changes would mean is that two households right next door to each other on exactly the same household income would receive the same taxpayer support, whether they were over the age of 65 or under the age of 65.
Although this is a hard change, I recognise that for people impacted by it, it's one that's not going to impact the sustainability of the private health insurance sector. And one, I think, is the right thing to do when we need to lean in so heavily in finding new funds for more aged care beds, more aged care packages and better care, particularly for people at home.
JOURNALIST: Just on the state of emergency reports into hospitals. It found that most hospitals in Australia are not adequately equipped for the surging demand driven by Australia’s aging population. What did you make of that report, and is there anything that can be done?
BUTLER: The report was only dropped out this morning, so I want to take a closer look at it. I was able to say a quick hello to a number of members of the college just as we were walking down here and hope to be able to engage with them again. This is a terrific college that represents some of the hardest working doctors we have in our community, people dealing with life-threatening emergencies every single day. I take their advice very, very seriously. And I've talked very publicly for some time now about the central theme of this report, which is that Australia is at a tipping point right now. As the oldest baby boomers start to enter their 80s, their need for good quality aged care and health services is skyrocketing, frankly. And that's a challenge for all governments, not just the Commonwealth government, one we are very much seized of, and I've talked about publicly.
Now, I've largely talked about that in the context of aged care services, but the college is absolutely right. This is hitting the hospital system as well and meaning that emergency departments are dealing with very different presentations to the traditional bread and butter work of EDs, which was car accidents and heart attacks and things like that. I think what the college has done this morning, without having the opportunity to go through their report in detail, is a really valuable contribution to a big discussion we need to have in this country. And that is the more work that we have to do to make sure that our health and aged care services are up to scratch and are going to provide the high quality, dignified care that a generation of Australians that has done so much to build this country deserve.
JOURNALIST: Minister, isn’t, then, the answer just more aged care beds, in that sense? Or is it a sense of the states needing to pull their socks up and invest more in hospitals themselves?
BUTLER: There is no single answer. It's right across the board. We've provided record funding to states to run their important public hospitals, an additional $25 billion in the agreement signed this year. We've got 137 Urgent Care Clinics now operating. That will mean 2 million Australians going through those Urgent Care Clinics instead of presenting to emergency departments, taking much needed pressure off our busy EDs. But yes, you're right, we need to do better in aged care. We need more aged care beds built. That goes back to really the earlier answer I gave, which is hard choices need to be made when you're running a budget like we are running to ensure that every dollar we can find to go into aged care services is able to be directed there.
JOURNALIST: Ageing Australia said last week that recent funding cuts meant that there was going to be a real-time 3,000 beds cut as a result. Is that the case, or is that what you’re hearing?
BUTLER: That's not the right characterisation. There were no funding cuts announced. What we announced was the implementation of advice by the independent pricing authority for aged care and hospitals. Now, I recognise that aged care providers are doing it tough as they face unprecedented demand going for the reasons that I've just outlined, and we're working very closely with them after, frankly, the record funding that we've delivered over the last four years. We know more needs to be done because of that tipping point that we're all facing. But what we did a couple of weeks ago was to announce the implementation of independent advice provided by a pricing authority set up by the former government.
JOURNALIST: Minister Plibersek, while we’ve got you just quickly on a separate one. Advocates and survivors at the time of the NDIS proposed cuts said that that could potentially entrap women and children at risk of sexual and family domestic violence into those relationships. Is that what you heard from the sector, and are you seeing that come to the fore at all now that this has started to be implemented?
PLIBERSEK: We've been working very closely with the family domestic and sexual violence sector to make sure that Australians who are victims of violence are able to leave safely. We've already assisted 29,000 people through our Leaving Violence Program to leave violent situations. We've invested in our 500 workers program to make sure that there are more frontline workers to assist people, and we'll continue to do that. Next year, we'll be rolling out the second action plan under our national plan to end violence against women and children. We'll be investing additionally through ‘Our Ways’, the first standalone Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander plan to end family and domestic and sexual violence. We’ll continue to work with states and territories who have primary responsibility for frontline services. But no government has invested more, no government has done more to support victim survivors of family, domestic and sexual violence.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask one question about smart glasses in Australia? The Greens want to have an import ban on them into Australia. Disability advocates have to come out today and said that there are many benefits of smart glasses to people with a disability. Is there a balance that we can have here?
PLIBERSEK: I think a number of local government councils essentially have banned smart glasses in places like swimming pools and where there’s lots of kids. I think it’s certainly worth looking at some restrictions or expectations around the use of smart glasses, particularly where users of those smart glasses are able to prevent people from knowing that the smart glasses are filming. On the other hand, we’ve heard extensively from people with vision impairment about the useful role that smart glasses can play for them, so I think certainly there’s a balance to be found.