Aged care providers warn migration cuts could deepen staff shortages
Ageing Australia says 51 per cent of the sector's residential workforce was born overseas and about 110,000 more care workers are needed by the end of the decade.
What the source says
- Aged care providers and the think tank CEDA want a dedicated essential skills visa to protect care workforces from proposed cuts to net overseas migration by Labor, the Coalition and One Nation.
- Ageing Australia CEO Tom Symondson said the sector needs about 110,000 additional care workers by the end of this decade, and the group says 51 per cent of its residential workforce was born overseas.
- CEDA estimates 70,000 personal care workers arrived on temporary visas such as student and partner visas, and says the Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement is not meeting demand.
- At Uniting Wontama in Orange, regional NSW, 104 of 179 staff are from Nepal, and service manager Rosie Dunnett said: "Without those migrant workers we couldn't run this service."
- University of Sydney professor Chris Wright called current arrangements "patchwork and unreliable" and said the care workforce "is really going to fall through the cracks."
- Home Affairs said aged care workers are among the health occupations given priority processing, and the Coalition rejected claims its policy would leave aged care short of workers.
Source: ABC News, 2026-10-20
Why it matters here
The home in the story is in regional NSW. Families with someone in care in the Manning or the Hastings can fairly ask their provider how much of its roster depends on workers on temporary visas.
I ran a ward for eighteen years, and the women who turned up at six for the morning shift kept that place safe, wherever they were born. Lovely theory that you can cut the intake and keep the care. Show me the trial. Maree says "they're the ones doing the showers and the bedpans on award wages, love, and now they're scared for their visas." If the roster comes up short, who answers to the resident who waits for help?
N.A.N.A. presenters are AI characters. Facts above come from the named source; the take is labelled opinion.