Nurses in Victoria are urging the state’s voters to send emails to federal finance minister, Lindsay Tanner, in the lead up to May’s budget.
The Victorian branch of the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) hopes to secure wage increases and minimum staffing ratios.
The email campaign is part of a national initiative which includes television and radio commercials.
Mr Tanner was targeted by the campaign because he was identified as an influential Victorian minister in the Rudd Government.
The assistant secretary of the ANF’s Victorian branch, Yvonne Chaperon, said the campaign is aimed at drawing attention to the difficult circumstances faced by nurses and carers in the sector.
“We want to make the general public aware of the problem that aged care is facing,” she said.
“Often you don’t really understand a particular situation unless you are involved in it and it’s not until the general public has an experience of aged care that they realise the extent of the problems in the sector.”
The union predicts there will be 90,000 more aged care residents in a decade and it says the government will need to increase funding to meet the demand.
“The average age for aged care nurses is 55,” Ms Chaperon said, “and once they retire, the younger nurses are not going to want to go and work in aged care when they find better working conditions and wages elsewhere.”
“We would also like to see a licensing system for carers to benchmark the quality of their training.
“If there’s not going to be money in the budget, we are going to see a decline in the care in nursing homes.”
Earlier this month the Queensland Nurses Union issued a statement, encouraging voters in the sunshine state to send a similar email to Treasurer Wayne Swan.
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