industry & policy
RN to pollie?
Ged Kearney. Photo: Supplied
Former nurse and union boss Ged Kearney discusses her run for federal election.
Ged Kearney interviewed by Dallas Bastian
A new voice for nurses might be headed to federal parliament. Former registered nurse and current union leader Ged Kearney will run for the federal seat of Batman. The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions will contest the inner-Melbourne electorate by-election for Labor on 17 March.
The announcement was welcomed by the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation( ANMF), of which Kearney was once federal secretary. The union said it was time nurses, midwives and carers finally had a voice in national parliament.
Kearney said she has so far drawn on her experience as a nurse during her campaign for federal election and said it will continue to play a role should she win.
“ Of all the professions in the world, nurses have the most wondrous life experience, and that’ s an important thing to take to parliament. They are also very ready to push up their sleeves, make hard decisions and get things done, and that’ s what I want to do – I want outcomes.”
Assistant federal secretary Annie Butler said that through working as a registered nurse and with the ANMF, Kearney has hands-on experience in healthcare and aged care.
“ She understands the daily pressures our members are facing every day in public and private hospitals, and aged care facilities.
“ Ged also understands the issues that need to be resolved for the sake of patients and their families,” Butler said.
“ For example, the overwhelming workloads faced by many of our members working in aged care are just not understood let alone supported by our current politicians.”
In an interview with Aged Care Insite, Kearney discussed the nursing and aged care-focused policies she will take into the by‐election and what having a nurse in parliament would mean for future policy discussions.
ACI: Should you win the by-election, how will your background as a nurse and union leader inform your choices in office? GK: As a nurse, you develop the most amazing skills. You really are a jack of all trades when it comes to understanding your
craft expertly. Communications skills, including very good listening skills, but also the ability to make assessments and judgements under very difficult circumstances and quickly. You know, sometimes a person’ s life could depend on you, just you, doing the right thing quickly at the right time. So you get a good balance between the ability to deal with difficult decisions and difficult situations, but at the same time maintaining that personcentred approach, so seeing the person as a whole and being able to communicate and understand.
Let’ s face it, as a nurse, you’ re given the most amazing privilege of dealing with people when they’ re most vulnerable and helping them with their most intimate of needs. So I think it gives you a really good insight into the community and into society that, to be honest, I think a lot of politicians could do with.
So I bring that. At the union, we fought big battles that really were not only about pay and conditions, that’ s important, but we also saw the health system as a whole and our patients at the centre of that. So a classic case, of course, is the battle for nurse / patient ratios in Victoria, which we’ ve now had enshrined in the law. That was really about workloads and being able to deliver safe patient care.
Those battles have really given me an understanding of how to go about seeing a problem, understanding what action needs to be taken, and then implementing that action, and knowing how to win. I mean, every now and then you really have to win if you really want to see change. And I’ ve seen a lot of change.
At the ACTU, of course, that whole experience of seeing the problems and trying to make change has been intensified for me.
We are dealing with some really serious issues right now around insecure work, this new gig economy, growing inequality, the way that the industrial relations system isn’ t working as well as it should be for working people, by stagnating wages. These are pretty big societal problems, even climate change, and the impact it has on workers and their communities, and how we can help those communities get through the changes that are needed to go to a low-carbon economy. I mean, these are things I dealt with at the ACTU and I think my years as a nurse have set me up to really understand how to bring people together, and how to listen, and how to act.
One specific issue the AMNF said you’ ll be able to lend your voice to in parliament is the workloads faced by aged
12 agedcareinsite. com. au