Albanese’s pledge to mandate 24/7 nurses in aged care comes with a disclaimer

Talking points

  • Anthony Albanese said last week a Labor government would bring forward to July 2023 laws requiring aged care homes to roster a nurse in each home around the clock.
  • But the party has now clarified that providers will be given “flexibility” if they cannot find enough staff to meet this standard.
  • It comes after shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told the ABC the requirement could be “paused” if a Labor government failed to grow the workforce in time to impose the rule on providers, risking closures.

The Labor campaign has walked back leader Anthony Albanese’s promise to mandate 24/7 nurses in aged care, clarifying that providers will be given “flexibility” if they cannot find enough staff.

Mr Albanese used his federal budget reply speech last Thursday to announce a Labor government would bring forward laws requiring aged care homes to roster a nurse in each home around the clock to July 2023, a year earlier than the government’s commitment.

Labor has clarified its 24/7 aged care nurse plan.Credit:Matt Dennien

“Under a Labor government, every aged care facility will be required to have a registered, qualified nurse on site, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Mr Albanese said.

But on Tuesday morning, Labor’s election campaign HQ told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an emailed statement that an Albanese government would give providers flexibility to ensure they were “not unfairly penalised where workforce supply issues limit their ability to meet this standard”.

The Opposition clarified the policy after shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told the ABC on Monday evening the 24/7 nursing requirement could be “paused” if a Labor government failed to grow the workforce in time to impose the rule on providers, risking closures.

“If it is, in fact, true that there are not enough nurses in Australia to provide that level of care, we should train more,” Mr Dreyfus told the ABC. “It might be that it turns out we’ve got to pause it.”

Whichever party wins the coming federal election will need to find 14,000 extra aged care nurses by October 2023 to meet the commitment already made by the Morrison government to put a nurse in each home for 16 hours a day and increase care minutes.

Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck and Health and Aged Care Minister Greg Hunt seized on Mr Dreyfus’s comments to attack Labor for “misleading senior Australians”, saying the Opposition had failed to provide a detailed response to the royal commission’s final report for more than a year.

“And now it finally has – it doesn’t stack up,” the ministers said in a joint media release. “At the first test of its policies, Labor has failed.”

Labor’s aged care spokeswoman, Clare O’Neil, declined to comment.

Mr Dreyfus said what distinguished the Labor policy was that it sought to fully implement the aged care royal commission’s recommendation.

“If you’ve set the standard and there’s just not staff there then that’s something that’s going to have to be looked at,” Mr Dreyfus said. “But let’s accept the royal commission’s recommendation, let’s say we need to have 24-hour nursing care in nursing homes, let’s put the nursing back into nursing homes as my leader has said.”

The federal government has agreed to the commission’s recommendation to put nurses in aged care homes 24/7 by 2024, although this is yet to be funded. The Labor pledge brings this forward by a year.

Health Department bureaucrats told Senate estimates last week they were waiting for more data, expected through new reporting requirements, to work out how many providers needed extra staff, before they could cost the government’s 2024-25 policy.

Last year’s federal budget included $3.9 billion over the forward estimates to increase the amount of care time in residential aged care, including mandating a nurse on site 16 hours a day from October 2023, but has not yet passed the legislation to make this happen.

“The Morrison government supports 24/7 nurses in aged care in the timeframe recommended by the royal commission,” Senator Colbeck and Mr Hunt said in their joint statement. “Rolling out the strategy any sooner risks the closure of aged care facilities with a serious risk to residents.”

Mr Albanese said on February 3: “You cannot find a nurse tomorrow. That’s the truth.”

The Labor campaign HQ spokeswoman said an Albanese government would “put nurses back into nursing homes” and make the sector “a place people want to work, knowing that they will be respected and valued for the important work they do in caring for our older citizens”.

“We will back higher wages to attract more workers to the sector,” the spokeswoman said.

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia said in its aged care workforce report in August that Australia faced a shortfall of 110,000 workers in the sector by 2030, increasing to more than 400,000 by 2050.

Both major parties have committed to investing in the training of aged care workers. Labor has promised 20,000 more university places while both parties plan to offer free TAFE courses, which the government funded in last week’s budget.

Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.

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