Television interview with Minister Wells and Greg Jennett, ABC News – 23 September 2024

Read the transcript of Minister Wells' television interview with Greg Jennett on new investment in the aged care sector and ACCC's court action against Coles and Woolworths.

The Hon Anika Wells MP
Minister for Aged Care
Minister for Sport

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GREG JENNETT, ABC NEWS: Now, on the last day of the House of Representatives sittings in Canberra, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells closed out a deal with the Coalition which enabled her to instantly present new laws to the House for an overhaul of care and funding in this country. The Minister still has more details and regulations to fill out, and today she's explained a little more about what's in store for service providers in smaller towns. We spoke to the Aged Care and Sports Minister from Melbourne a short time ago.

[Excerpt]

Anika Wells, so good to have you back with us once again on Afternoon Briefing. Now, why don't we kick off on aged care? Because you announced as part of your package, back on the 12th of September, the additional $930 million investment in the sector. Today, you're announcing what I think is a further breakdown within that for what's called thin markets – so typically regional towns that don't have many aged care services or facilities. What is on offer to them?

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND MINISTER FOR SPORT: Yeah. Well, hailing from Queensland, obviously the most decentralised state in the country, I understand the importance of having thriving regions. So what we're announcing today is $600 million worth of initiatives and funding to support home care in what is called thin markets but are often- most often regional and rural areas, and an additional $300 million worth of infrastructure funding so that we can build more wings, more new facilities, and renovate that which already exists to make sure that the sector is set up for the future.

JENNETT: How many locations or services do you envisage will be covered by these grants?

WELLS: Well, it depends. It's sort of – it builds on what we already do. So it depends how big the grant needs to be. Sometimes it's $1.1 million because they're just shy, a private provider is just shy, needs that final amount to get over the line. Sometimes we're chipping in a great deal. I think, most recently, I was – well, not most recently, but recently, I was up with Bob Katter in his electorate of Kennedy with $13.4 million to put a new kitchen and new wing into a facility that was, I guess, remote by – certainly by Canberran standards. So it really depends on what's needed and what that particular region needs by way of services to look after the older Australians needing care there.

JENNETT: Okay. So these payments or grants are for 2 years. What makes you think that a small town that receives one, let's say, 5000 or 6000 population, will be in any better position in 2 years? Will they be extended? Will they be rolled over?

WELLS: Well, like I said, it's something that we already do and have been doing to prop up the sector for some time. This sector, as we're all aware, has been on its knees, in crisis and particularly since COVID. But given the huge uplift in funding that the Albanese Government has delivered to the sector in recent years, tens of billions of dollars in the nearly two-and-a-half years since we came to office, and now the uplift that's expected both from the additional money from indexation, from the change in the AN-ACC rates that will come in on 1 October, and the additional uplift when we shift the sector to its new footing and introduce support at home, and the new Act, which we hope will come into operation 1 July next year, pending the goodwill of the Senate, we'll be able to ensure the sector is viable and encourage that kind of investment that it just hasn't seen in so many years.

JENNETT: And it's quite some time to wait, isn't it, between now and the start of the new system in July next year. Is it possible that certain providers or facilities won't make it that far until these grants become available?

WELLS: We always have individual providers exiting the system, and it's often the case that we support them to do that. One of the rules that exists currently in aged care is that you can't just shut up shop without finding a place for the existing residents that you care for. So we already have a hand and taxpayers already contribute to ensuring that happens. And there have been aged care closures in the past 5, 6 years since the Royal Commission, since COVID. It's been a sector that's been on its knees for some time. What we want to make sure in the future is that people aren't closing because the investment is not there, because it's not seen as viable.

And one of the things that is contained within the aged care reforms that we announced on the 12th of September is closing that investability gap to make sure that the sector is viable, because not only is it not in a good way now – you know, let's not gild the lily here – but tens of thousands of Australians will need aged care in the decades to come. The peak provider or the peak of providers will tell you we need to build 10,000 new beds every year for the next 2 decades in order to have enough for everybody that will need aged care in the decades to come.

WELLS: …will need aged care in the decades to come.

The peak provider, or the peak of providers will tell you we need to build 10,000 new beds every year for the next two decades in order to have enough for everybody that will need aged care in the decades to come. 

JENNETT: No, a mammoth project to be sure. Can we talk about workforce, Anika? The government's on, in an overall sense, a path to slow net migration levels in this country. But Aged Care has developed quite a reliance, of late, on employer sponsored visas to rebuild its workforce with some really big agreements – I think, in the case of one West Australian operator, 500. 

WELLS: Yeah [indistinct]…

JENNETT: How have you quarantined or ring fenced aged care visas from net migration slowdowns? 

WELLS: Well, those that you speak of, the 500-plus worker agreement over in WA, is part of the labour agreements that the Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, helped bring into place a tripartite agreement between the workplace, the union and the government and – to make sure that those workers are there. It's one of the many levers that we have had to pull to try and get more workforce into a sector that desperately needs more workforce. 

But, I would say the biggest lever that we pulled was now more than $15 billion towards pay rises for aged care workers. And we're now at more than $15 billion for that, that's been really important. But it also shows the results now. Some – more than a year into the scheme I was just meeting with rural and remote aged care providers. A couple of weeks ago, in Juniper, one of them said to me that their turnover for staff before the pay rises was at 40 per cent, it's dropped now to 20 per cent.

JENNETT: I see. So, does that mean that the reliance on visas, for foreign workers that is, will actually fall away from here as that wage increase kicks in? 

WELLS: I would hope so, but I think we just need more workers. And aged care, like a lot of the care economy, has always been propped up by a very strong percentage of migrant workers coming to our country and doing some of this really important care work. So, I think the aged care pay rises are the most significant thing we can do both to reduce that staff turnover, which providers are telling us is manifestly there – all staff attrition rates, turnover rates are down since PCs can earn more than $7,000 a year or nurses now earn more than $10,000 a year additionally because of these pay rises – that's the most important thing that a government could do and that's what we've done. 

But there are plenty of other measures, like the PALM scheme for example, where that is working. And we're looking to extend that because people that need workers in aged care tell us that's what's working for them. 

JENNETT: All right. That’s…

WELLS: [Interrupts] We've also got to train up more people – Sorry, Greg, I'm sorry to cut you off, but it's an important issue. You know, things we're doing like fee-free TAFE, the reports there as well, aged care workers some of the biggest takers up in that sector. So, that's educating and training up more people in Australia to the sector as well. 

JENNETT: All right. No, thanks for that explanation, I appreciate it. Let's, in the time remaining, Anika Wells, see if we can just branch off to a couple of other matters of the day. Supermarkets. You will have seen the ACCC’s taken an action in the courts against Coles and Woolworths over, allegedly, misleading labelling on price savings. Should customers boycott those chains if they have a choice, as a means of protesting?

WELLS: Well, I think if these allegations are true they're really concerning – they're unacceptable and they're un-Australian. Noting it's still before the courts and we've got a ways to go, customers should go where the prices are cheapest. And it would be really upsetting to find out that was true, that people were deliberately messing with the specials when specials and picking where you go based on the specials – particularly if you've got a big family like we do, it's a really important part of Australians trying to keep their household budgets in order when things are so tough. 

I, for one, know that we, like, we shop where prices are cheapest and specifically where the dinosaur nuggets in bulk go cheapest. 

JENNETT: [Laughs] Yes.

WELLS: And you'd hate to think that the information we were being given about that wasn't accurate. So, very concerning.

JENNETT: Do you reckon you might have been conned in the past by the down advertising campaign? 

WELLS: Well, it's $8.99 for a kilo, Greg. I'd hate to think I was forking out an extra two bucks unnecessarily, but I will be looking into it. 

JENNETT: All right, I'll put you in the category of savvy consumer. Look, just finally, Anika Wells, Labor's electoral fortunes in Queensland – there's been some trend analysis over the Resolve Political Monitor poll, really a compilation of its surveys has Labor's primary vote in Queensland down to 25 per cent? There's every indication the Miles Government will fall. You’ve faced some tough fights in your seat of Lilley twice now. Will you be limiting ministerial travel over the next few months to try and shore up the home base there?

WELLS: Well, I think the fact that I'm a proud Queenslander and member of federal Labor shows I never pay too much attention to the polls. I get my feedback very directly from the good burghers of Lilley at mobile offices, and I make sure that I do that wherever I am out and about in the country. I always come home to Lilley and find out what's happening outside the Zillmere IGA or the Geebung Fox coffee. t's always – look, I'm not going to lie – it's always tough in Queensland for us. Queenslanders are discerning. You earn your vote the hard way. 

But some of our some of the proudest Queenslanders are now in the Cabinet – Jim Chalmers, Murray Watt, myself – you know. We're fighters. We know that Queensland wants us to show up and fight for them. That's what we have been doing and that's what we'll continue to do. 

JENNETT: Well, let's see what the next few months brings for all of you. Anika Wells, we look forward to getting you back on the program.

WELLS: Great to have you, Greg.

JENNETT: Always an open invitation. Thank you. 

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