What we learned – Tuesday, 20 December
With that, we will wrap up the blog for the evening.
Just five sleeps till Christmas, for those who partake!
Here were the major events of the day:
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has been announced as the ambassador to the US in a suite of new diplomatic announcements. The shadow foreign affairs minister, Simon Birmingham, released a cautious but optimistic statement in response to the Albanese government’s appointments.
The opposition has accused the Labor government of breaking a promise to aged care workers by delaying the full 15% wage increase backed by the Fair Work Commission.
Four teenagers have been found alive after going missing in waters off Victoria’s Mornington peninsula.
South Australia’s premier Peter Malinauskas closed the Murray River to all non-essential activities to confront the “ever increasing flows of water” coming down from New South Wales. It is projected to be the largest flood in 50 years.
And the privatisation of bus routes across Sydney and Newcastle is amping up capacity and improving services, the NSW government says, despite a recent report calling it an “absolute disaster”.
Updated
‘We are passing on the full 15%’ pay rise, aged care minister stresses
In the face of growing concern about aged care wages, the federal government is stressing its commitment to deliver the full 15% pay rise to workers that the Fair Work Commission has ordered.
The aged care minister, Anika Wells, pointed out this morning the FWC process hasn’t yet concluded, and again promised workers would get a 15% pay bump - albeit spaced out over two years, instead of in one hit.
“We are passing on the full 15%,” she told Sunrise.
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston claimed the decision to space out the pay rise, with 10% next year and 5% more in 2024, was a broken promise. Government sources pushed back on that claim, saying they’d never promised the full pay rise would come all at once.
Wells also pointed out in morning TV interviews that the process “isn’t even finished yet”, noting there were still two further stages of the FWC process that could make further recommendations beyond the 15% pay rise:
We are getting our ducks in a row so that once that process concludes, some months into the new year, come 1 July, a 10% pay rise will be there for aged care workers and another 5% 12 months after that.
It’s being staggered because we’ve got to get our ducks in a row and we have to make sure when we are giving hundreds of millions of Australian taxpayer dollars, we’re doing it in a way that’s accountable and that money is going to where it’s most needed, which is in the pockets of aged care workers.
Wells called it a “historic” pay rise.
“It’s a big deal. We promised it and we’re getting it done,” she said.
Updated
