It is imperative that aged care workers receive a significant pay rise. However, many aged care providers are private ‘for-profit’ – including publicly listed companies (Estia, Regis) and multinational corporations (Bupa, Opal). Do these large commercial businesses expect a pay rise for their staff to be funded by the government?
As the Aged Care Royal Commission final report noted: Successive governments have made several failed attempts to improve staff wages “by providing additional funds to providers in the hope (my italics) that they would be passed on to aged care workers by way of increased wages. They were not.”
First published as a letter to The Age 10 August 2022
