RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The pandemic has exposed big cracks in the way Australia’s economy and social services operate. Insecure work and a privatised and underfunded aged care system have been pinpointed as two key areas desperately needing reform.

Today, senior reporter for The Saturday Paper, Rick Morton, on how the Victorian state government - having navigated the second wave - is trying to lead the national conversation on what needs to change.

RUBY:

Rick, last week, the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, handed down his state budget, the first since the pandemic hit. How much has this budget tried to address the problems that led to Victoria's second wave?

RICK:

It does make a fair stab at it. And I think we need to remember what happened in the second wave. So, you know, when that tore through Victoria, it was the public health response that initially failed the state. And that was followed by the problems inherent in insecure work and this fragile aged care system that we've watched develop over the years.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“This pandemic has exposed just how fragile the financial arrangements and employment arrangements of hundreds of thousands of Victorians are…”

RICK:

And responsibility for those two areas actually lies with the federal government. But Victoria isn't waiting for them to re-engage with its core responsibilities. With this budget, Daniel Andrews is saying: never again, not going to let that happen again.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“It's no good for public health, it's no good for much at all actually, so there's a need for us to come back to that issue.”

RICK:

And he's focused his response on two main areas: aged care and industrial relations, kind of, policy measures. And it's really something we should all be watching because those problems are affecting everyone, all across the country. You know, it happened in Victoria with the spread of Covid. It could have happened anywhere else because those issues are endemic in this nation.

RUBY:

OK, let's start with the problem of insecure work, Rick. What did the Victorian government announce to try and address that?

RICK:

So this is actually something that Daniel Andrews raised during the peak of the second wave. At the time, he said it would be important to have a conversation about insecure work because of the impact it has on people not being able to have adequate sick leave, for example, or any sick leave, for that matter. And on Monday, just the day before the budget...

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“Everyone right to go?”

RICK:

...the government announced a two year pilot programme to provide sick leave for workers in precarious employment.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“So many workers have to choose between going to work sick or feeding their kids, paying the bills, surviving, getting to next week.”

RICK:

He said that this 1 in 100 year event has shown us so many things we can be proud of.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“The strength of character, the fact that we are a compassionate state and look out for each other, the fact that we have a world class health system, the list goes on and on…”

RICK:

But he also said it highlighted these huge economic holes.

Archival tape -- Daniel Andrews:

“Insecure work isn't just bad for those who work under those conditions. It's bad for all of us. And we all pay a price for the fact that so many people, particularly those who work in public facing jobs, do not have sick leave, do not have sick pay or carers pay to fall back on.”

RICK:

So in terms of the detail, you know, it's a small programme to start off with. We've got 5 million dollars in the budget (the state budget) to design this pilot programme. It won't be running, according to Andrews, until late 2021 or early the following year. And it will start with workers in selected industries with the problem of casualisation is most pressing. You know, they will be plucked from the experience they had in the second wave, like aged care, meat processing, things like that. But the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, told me that the Victorian initiative is really a significant step forward.

Archival tape -- Sally McManus:

“This year insecure work has literally wrecked the economy. And I hate to say it, but it is true. It has led to people dying, so I don't think we can have a more stark example of just what is at stake.”

RICK:

So to be clear, McManus isn't blaming workers for spreading the virus, but she points the finger at the very system itself, which leaves them no choice in a race for survival.

Archival tape -- Sally McManus:

“It's like a very straightforward human choice. If it's you're going to stay home because you've got a sniffle or you're going to be able to pay the bills that week, it’s a pretty simple one.”

RICK:

And unfortunately, she said when we've had the working groups in these discussions with employers around key issues and one of them has been around casual work, the employers won't even admit that there's a problem.

RUBY:

And Rick, one of the areas where we really saw insecure work, combined with high risk settings in terms of, of where the most vulnerable people live, was in aged care. So what is Victoria doing to respond to what we saw happen there during the second wave?

RICK:

That's completely right. It's important to note that when we talk about what happened in aged care, we distinguish between the private commonwealth regulated facilities and the state-owned and run facilities. So after Covid made its second run in the state, having escaped from hotel quarantine, it was aged care homes with their contingent of low paid, poorly-trained and often migrant workforce that became one of the most powerful institutional vectors for the disease in Victoria.

So Victoria's state run homes actually have the highest legislated minimum staffing ratios. In fact, the Commonwealth, which regulates the vast majority of all the other private nursing homes, has no mandatory required minimum of staffing ratios.

So, the premier has provided forty million dollars over four years to support an increase in aged care student placements for nurses and personal care workers. So there's this one key condition, and this is where it gets tricky. He's going to provide this subject to the Commonwealth accepting and funding recommendations from the royal commission into aged care quality and safety to introduce a minimum mandated staffing ratios in private and not-for-profit residential aged care facilities.

So that all being said, it's important to note that Victoria or any other state for that matter, has no say whatsoever over the regulation of the rest of the aged care sector. As we pointed out before, it's entirely a commonwealth responsibility. But that hasn't stopped the Andrews government from attempting to force the needle on reform in its budget.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Rick, we're seeing the Victorian government take some tentative steps to address issues with insecure work and in aged care, but ultimately the federal government has responsibility in both of those areas. So what has the federal government’s response been to the Victorian announcements?

RICK:

Well, on both fronts the policy response has already been or will soon be an angry one. We already saw Attorney-General Christian Porter call the Insecure Work Sick Leave Programme a business and employment killing approach. And when it comes to aged care, we're still waiting for the government to act on the findings of the royal commission in the interim report and the Covid-19 report, which is due on the 1st of December.

And the key issue, obviously, on both of these fronts is that, you know, greater funding and better regulation at a national level to avoid quality issues is needed. But so far, there's not much of a sign that's coming from the federal government. In fact, you know, in the budget, the federal government budget, there was no new money for nursing homes at all. It was something that I hadn't expected. I told everyone that it would be crazy for them not to do that, given the royal commission and Covid-19. And yet, that's exactly what happened.

RUBY:

Rick, during the second wave, the Victorian government was criticised for having an under-resourced health department, particularly in the area of public health. That’s an issue that is more in their control than insecure work or aged care. How did the Victorian budget address that?

RICK:

So it's not all peaches for Victoria, particularly on the health front. So they have made some go at that reform, small reform and some extra money in the budget. Notably, I think there's a two point nine dollars billion spend on the Covid-19 public health response, but most of that will have been spent containing the virus to date. So, you know, before the budget was even printed and there is, you know, a little bit more that will be spent in the rest of this financial year, but there's actually not that much in the way of forward looking reform. So while the budget contains another 2.8 billion dollars in funding to maintain hospital capacity over four years, there is just 50 million dollars allocated after 2020/21 in additional budget allocations for public health.

RUBY:

And so, Rick, when you look at these changes announced by Daniel Andrews in his budget, changes to the workforce and to the aged care system, do you think they will be enough? Will they have the effect that he’s hoping for?

RICK:

Look, it's hard to say because they are.. look, they're very small measures. To me, the most interesting thing is the fact that he's having a go. I mean, state premiers typically do not venture outside of their boundaries into areas of federal responsibility, usually because you pick a fight with the Commonwealth that you're just not willing to have. But in this case, it's important that Daniel Andrews did because he saw what happens when these things fail. Now, if, and particularly the insecure work in the aged care policies, if they get any foothold and he's offered to work with other states and territories who want to try a similar thing with the sick leave pilot. If they get a foothold, then we do have, you know, a conversation changing as well as policy changing effort in this country where we can actually stop accepting the status quo because we have been witnessing the increasing casualisation.

And so if we can actually start to say, hang on a second, you know what, this is a public health issue. This isn't just an economic issue. This is about people and what happens when people are desperate and we need them to be protected so we can protect ourselves. Like that's what a community does. Right? Similarly with the aged care measure, if there's even a little bit of incentive in this budget measure from Daniel Andrews for the federal government to do what it should have done years ago under both Labor and coalition, if that happens, then that's an amazing thing, because we actually have seen the research, that if you have proper qualified clinical care in nursing homes, then you save lives.

So, you know, these things are important. You know, Sally McManus was telling me that, you know, she thinks this is very bold of Victoria to attempt such a manoeuvre on the sick leave scheme because we haven't seen it elsewhere, really, the New South Wales budget was handed down in November as well. And it contained all the usual stuff that you get, you know, the heavy spending on infrastructure and they went a bit further on some long awaited tax reform. But the Berijikilian government didn't venture out of its traditional realm of responsibility because that's just not what state governments do.

Whereas Daniel Andrews has tried to say, look, we lived this. We know how bad things can get when it goes wrong. So maybe we can try and change the national conversation and I think that's a very good thing.

RUBY:

Rick, thank you for your time today.

RICK:

Thanks very much, appreciate it.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today...

The Royal Commission investigating the actions of former gangland lawyer turned police informer Nicola Gobbo has released its final report. It concluded that the convictions or findings of guilt of more than one-thousand people may have been affected by Victoria Police's use of Gobbo as a source. It also recommended that a special investigator be appointed to determine if Gobbo and police officers broke any laws.

And Qantas has confirmed that it’s outsourcing more than 2,000 ground staff roles across 10 airports. Baggage handlers, ramp workers and cabin cleaners at airports including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth will lose their jobs. Qantas has cut about 8,500 jobs since the pandemic hit, due to international travel bans and state border closures.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am see you tomorrow.