industry & reform
Stop underpaying aged care workers
Why we should advocate
for better wages.
Gay Taylor interviewed by Conor Burke
T
he aged care industry is
big business. It accounts for
approximately 1 per cent of
Australia’s GDP, with revenues of
over $20 billion and about 5 per cent
annual growth.
For the near quarter of a million aged
care workers, this should equate to good
working conditions and fair pay. However,
time and again we hear from frontline
workers that this isn’t the case. Along
with staff-to-patient ratios, there are
increasing calls for aged care workers to
get significant pay increases.
During this year’s federal election
campaign, Labor caused uproar by
14 agedcareinsite.com.au
promising to increase the wages of
low‑paid childcare workers but not those
of aged care workers.
Elsewhere, COTA chief executive Ian
Yates told the royal commission earlier
this year that: “The aged care sector
overall is underpaid by a factor of at least
15 per cent. That’s a real challenge, yes,
and I think getting stuff right is going to
be a very important part of the focus and
outcome of this commission.”
Gay Taylor, an RN with six years of
experience working in aged care, believes
the reasons aged care workers are ignored
are myriad.
The marketisation of the sector
stemming from reform in the 1980s has
kept staffing levels low, and she believes
these staff do not want to appear greedy
or uncaring in fighting for better wages.
Taylor spoke with Aged Care Insite to
unpack some of these issues.
ACI: Are all aged care workers
underpaid?
GT: Nurses in aged care are underpaid
compared to their hospital counterparts,
and of course the wages for care workers
are also fairly low. Probably comparative
with childcare workers, where it’s a fairly
low paid industry.
To be honest, the main thrust of my
talk was not just that aged care workers
were underpaid. The biggest crisis in the
aged care industry, in residential aged
care, is critical under-staffing. The fact
that there are no staff-to-resident ratios
mean that even in a very good home
(and I worked in one), there is never
a time where there is enough staff to
provide the sort of care that you would
want your parents to have.
Aged care is a $20 billion a year industry
and contributes about 1 per cent to GDP.
Yet the big players always cry poor. They
say they can’t afford to pay staff more
and can’t afford more staff.
When I was researching this talk, I also
believed the rhetoric, which most people
believe, that residential aged care is a
bottomless pit of financial need.
In doing the research, I read the funding
and financing of the aged care sector
report 2017 – a government report on the
public record. I was really shocked to read
those figures that you’ve mentioned, which
is that in 2015–16, residential aged care