27 August 2020
A veteran Federal Liberal MP has called the privatisation of aged care “a disaster waiting to happen” and called on the Prime Minister to boost investment in not-for-profit care.
Victorian MP Russell Broadbent resigned from two parliamentary positions in protest against the Government’s treatment of aged care in his electorate in 2017, and this week told Guardian Australia he had been attempting to sound a warning about the sector’s vulnerability for years “but I was ignored completely”.
“Successive governments over 30 years have handed the care of people into the private sector, and that has been a mistake,” Mr Broadbent told The Guardian. “Profit became more important than care. This was a disaster waiting to happen.”
He declined to say which tier of government was more responsible for the failings during the pandemic, but said the Government needed to boost funding for not-for-profit aged care providers, “particularly in regional areas”.
Mr Broadbent also told The Guardian the resources of the federal health department also needed to be bolstered because “there are not enough people on the ground to know what is going on at a local level”.
The ANMF (SA Branch) has long been a staunch opponent of privatisation and this year partnered with SA Unions in an anti-privatisation/job cuts advertising campaign that ran on television.
The advert featured ANMF (SA Branch) Councillor and enrolled nurse Tammy Bornhoeft. Check it out below.