Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spruiked the former Coalition Government’s Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme that has brought 25,000 Pacific Island workers to Australia, including to residential aged care homes, during a visit to Fiji last week.
“So lovely to meet Fijian students getting ready to work in aged care in Australia,” the PM tweeted.
“We’ve inherited an aged care sector in crisis, but we’ve got a plan to fix it.”
Mr Albanese was at the Australian Government-funded Australia Pacific Training Coalition in Suva, which the Morrison Government extended to aged care when COVID struck. Countries participating in PALM are Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
PALM was launched in September last year by the previous Government with the aim of attracting 12,500 aged care, agriculture, accommodation and hospitality workers to Australia by March.
40 Fijian students who went through a 12-week aged care course will be employed and deployed by nursing recruitment business HealthX to homes in Yeppoon, Mackay, Bundaberg, the Sunshine Coast, Gympie and Toowoomba, QLD, in about three weeks.
Mr Albanese said legislation will be introduced to allow the families of Pacific Island aged care workers to come to Australia. A proposed Pacific Engagement Visa will be valid for a longer period of up to four years and will allow workers to return to Australia multiple times.
“My Government has committed to 215 minutes of care (every resident to receive a minimum of three hours and 35 minutes of care per day) in accordance with the Aged Care Royal Commission,” he said.
“We know that we will need more workers in order to satisfy the demand.”
14,000 extra nurses in 18 months if Albanese’s pledge is to succeed
