Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 6:54:00 to 6:57:51
The department addresses concerns regarding the 2.55% ANAC price increase and whether it sufficiently covers the 4.75% wage increase for aged care workers. Officials discuss stakeholder feedback and the methodology used to index costs forward.
Topics: Workplace relations, Government spending
Speakers: Senator The Hon Anne Ruston, Mr Daen Dorazio, Unknown Speaker, Mr Greg Pugh, Senator The Hon Jenny McAllister
Uh okay. So um I'd just like to ask some questions around um Anak. So Professor Purban, you can start warming up your engines.
I'm sorry, Senator, are you addressing the question? So you want to repeat the question, Senator. I have to confess I was expecting um Professor Pervan given you brought them to the table to answer the question.
So well, given I said did the department or the minister that she's I apologize.
I have been at the first not very well.
So I'm just saying with the um the ANAC um increase at 2.55% that occurred on the 1st of um October 2026. I'm just wondering whether your department or the minister had received any advice as to um whether this would cover the expected growth in costs, particularly um including the 4.75% wage increase that was awarded this year to our hardworking age care workers.
So, Senator Hackpa um following the announcement of the ANAC price. We obviously received representations from the sector. Um so by by advice, if you mean did we receive feedback from stakeholders? Yes, we did following the announcement of the um ANAC price.
Could you maybe summarise that feedback that you received?
I think um I think it's it's fairly clear that the sector felt that um they would have preferred a higher increase.
Um would they would have preferred a higher increase or they believe that a higher increase was necessary to have met what they remember?
That a higher increase would have been warranted.
Um I'm just interested in and and I I'll go to Professor Pervan in a minute about how he undertook his assessment. I'm keen to understand what the department's been doing here. Um and that the costing, now I understand that the costs were indexed forward from the 2324 um year. So has the department done any independent work to determine whether using an indexed forward 2324 set of numbers is actually providing a does it actually represent the actual cost of 2627 given the unique circumstances we find in an incredibly inflationary environment, particularly in health and age care at the moment. Just have you done any work on that.
Sorry, if you're asking, do we independent do we take a different view or do our own work separately from our hack on that? We do not.