Registered nurses who work in aged care ought to have their HECS debt waived, Nationals chief David Littleproud has advised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s jobs and abilities summit.
Addressing the gathering of union and enterprise leaders at Parliament Home earlier at the moment, Littleproud pointed to this system for waiving HECS debt for docs and nurse practitioners working in rural and distant areas launched by the previous Coalition authorities.
Nationals chief David Littleproud shakes the hand of teal unbiased Allegra Spender. Credit score:Alex Ellinghausen
“I’m sorry, Jim [Chalmers], I’m going to spend a bit little bit of your cash right here,” he quipped.
“[We should] be pragmatic … in attempting to incentivise our younger individuals, but in addition spend money on our younger individuals.”
The proposal to wipe HECS money owed for aged care nurses alone might, if carried out, price the taxpayer greater than $60 million.
However this can be a fraction of the continued price of protecting larger wages of an expanded aged care workforce if the Truthful Work Fee backs unions’ push for a pay rise forward of latest necessary minimal staffing (attributable to start subsequent July).
The Grattan Institute estimates that absolutely funding a 25 per cent wage rise for all aged care staff would price the federal price range an additional $3 billion a 12 months.
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Recruiting further nurses amid a world scarcity is a significant problem for the federal government in delivering on its election pledge to place a registered nurse in each aged care house across the clock by July 2023.
Well being Division modelling reveals an additional 14,000 nurses are wanted simply to ship the bipartisan dedication to require aged care properties to have a registered nurse on web site for 16 hours a day by October 2023.
About 2500 extra can be wanted to ship Labor’s 24/7 mandate, which the federal government will search to legislate when parliament sits subsequent week.
The Andrews authorities final week introduced a plan to pay college charges for greater than 10,000 scholar nurses and midwives. The scholarships are value $16,500 every, with $9000 to be paid whereas they examine and the remaining $7500 in the event that they work in Victorian public well being companies for 2 years.
