Labor’s Dr Mike Freelander says more men need to be drawn into the sector.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
In an interview parallel to the hearing,Freelander – a paediatrician who sat on a cross-parliamentary inquiry into aged care in 2018 – said a number of factors contributed to the workforce’s poor bargaining power,including the fact it was “pretty feminised”.
“It has traditionally been very much a female-based workforce,as has nursing generally over the years ... and a lot of the male members of the workforce have tended to go more for administration rather than into hands-on type work,” said Freelander,who is recontesting the south-west Sydney seat of Macarthur at the May 21 federal election.
He said while the intensity of the work had changed,the workforce hadn’t “and that’s reflected in the fact that more of the aged care workforce and disability care workforce is getting burnt out and leaving the industry”.
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It would be good to see more men in the sector,he said,adding that while more would get involved in future “we’re already a couple of decades behind where we should be”.
The Health Services Union has applied to Fair Work to lift aged care workers’ pay by $5 an hour in what has become a major election issue. Labor has promised to endorse the wage case and fully fund the outcome of the commission’s decision should it win the election while the federal government has declined to endorse the case but has committed to honouring the outcome.
Mark Gibian SC,acting for the HSU,told the Fair Work hearing in Sydney roles in the sector had been “historically,and regrettably,characterised as women’s work”.