On the morning of 27 July, The Philippine Times (TPT) had the rare opportunity of meeting one-on-one with the Honourable Daniel Andrews MP, Premier of Victoria.
The Premier was welcomed at the Waterman Business Centre in Chadstone by Alice Nicolas (Publisher), George Gregorio (Digital Content Publisher), Jason Cordi (Editor-in-Chief), and Raine Cabral Laysico (Writer) of TPT. Each person introduced themselves to the Premier and advised him about their role in the newspaper and any other work they do. Also present was freelance photographer Angelito Valdez Jr of Filipino Photographers Australia.
Mr. Andrews confirmed with the team his understanding that the Filipino community is spread mainly around Melbourne, concentrating in the outer western and south-eastern suburbs. The Premier was grateful for the overwhelmingly positive response from the Filipino community after the release of his Philippine Independence Day video in June, which garnered over 120,000 views on The Philippine Times Facebook page.
Following the meet and greet, Jason and Raine proceeded to interview the Premier regarding some issues relevant to the Filipino community, including new initiatives introduced by the Victorian government to support families.
Widespread benefits of Free Kinder in Victoria
Raine Cabral Laysico (RCL): Great initiative with the Free Kinder program across the state. As a mother of two with my eldest in Prep, can you tell us more about this?
Premier Dan Andrews (DA): We’re going to double the number of hours for four-year-olds from 15 hours to 30 hours. We’ll continue with our roll out by the end of the decade, getting up to fully 15 hours for all the three-year-olds… everybody’s got five hours at least. Families can save $2,500 on average per year with the introduction of free kinder in 2023, a profound investment which is going to be rolling out across Victoria. (It’s) great for the cost of living, helping household budgets. Great for young Victorians, all those life skills, socialisation, being ready for school. Fantastic for family budgets beyond just the savings, it allows, if you choose to, predominantly women to go back to work to do an extra day or an extra shift and not be losing money. Of course, free kinder versus paid childcare, it’s a fairly easy choice. Plus, it’s play based learning. We know that those first five years for brain development, for confidence, for school readiness pays you back in spades.
It’s doing something about it (cost of living affecting families in Victoria). Great for the economy, great for female participation in the workforce. We know that there’s so many shortages of workers at the moment. We’ve got women who are qualified to do all sorts of different jobs, but they can’t afford to go back because it costs them – they are not making money if they go back to work. It’s fantastic for the kind of life opportunity that the smallest Victorians will get. And they’re going to have the skills, because of this, that the economy will demand of them in 15 years.
I think grandparents are pretty excited about this, too. We know particularly in the community like the Filipino community, grandma and grandpa help out so much, and that’s terrific. But it’s nice to be able to let them do other things as well and not necessarily be providing quite as much childcare as they do. Options – it makes things flexible for everybody.
Power Saving Bonus: Extra guidance for the Filipino community
RCL: The power saving bonus has already helped many people in the Filipino community. Given the rising costs families are facing, is there support available for those who are technologically challenged who aren’t able to apply for the bonus online?
DA: Last week, 1 million Victorian households had registered for the Power Saving Bonus. This is just practical support… the $250 is better in your pocket. But the really important thing about this is that the 7 out of 10 people who will go on the website http://compare.energy.vic.gov.au will save on average $330 a year, every year. So you get a one-off payment, then you get almost – it’s not guaranteed, but the vast majority of people will be getting ongoing savings each and every year. There is a helpline (1800 00 832) which people can call, as well as a range of organisations known as community partners that can be contacted: Neighbourhood House Victoria, Brotherhood of St. Laurence, Ethnic Community Councils of Victoria, Good Shepherd, State Trustees, Action Law Centre. Bring your bill, they’ll type the details in, and they’ll get you the $250. You can do the whole thing with them and get support.
(Editor’s note: The Premier asked whether bi-lingual support was needed. Jason responded that no Filipino language materials for the Power Saving Bonus were available. Mr. Andrews immediately committed to have resources in Tagalog added to the Compare Energy website within a few weeks).
Premier Andrews’ special thank you to Filipino healthcare workers, pledge of support
Jason Cordi (JC): There are a large number of Filipino healthcare workers in Victoria. Many are facing serious struggles in their day-to-day lives, particularly with the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 in the hospital system. What will your government do to support nurses and healthcare workers who are experiencing burnout and/or considering leaving the industry?
DA: The first thing to do is to thank everyone who are healthcare workers. Nurses, doctors, ambos, cooks and cleaners, admin- everyone across the whole team has done an amazing job in very, very challenging circumstances in the last two and a half years. Winter’s always a challenging time, COVID or no COVID, so we have flu, it’s a nasty strain this year, some other respiratory conditions – so it’s a very challenging time. And those workers are the best of us, they really are, so highly skilled, so passionate and so supportive of their patients and clients. Whether it’s in mental health, in the emergency departments, in primary care, aged care. I’ve had the great honour of meeting many Filipino Victorians that work in the health system whether it’s Personal Care Attendants in Aged Care – ours and Private Sector, nurses of course – growing number of nurses, medical professionals, specialists. The whole range if you like. In some ways, it’s hard to think of the health system being able to function without the Filipino Australian staff. Those migration patterns have been really important to us.
The good news is that they (Department of Home Affairs) have put, I think, it might be hundreds of extra staff on who are working through all those different visa pathways, different visa applications. We’ve got to get them into the country. That’s kind of a medium-term plan, and we welcome in the strongest possible terms – more and more health professionals from the Philippines. Absolutely, they will be made to feel more than welcome here. They’ll be valued. They’ll be a very important part of our team. And of course, particularly from a nursing point of view, they will come to Victoria knowing that nursing-to-patient ratios are written into law, workload is managed, and they’ve got strong support.
So back in the budget in May, we put a $12 billion repair plan. 7,000 extra staff, 5,000 of those will be nurses. And then we will obviously find many of those who are studying here now. But we’ve always had a strong record of overseas trained nurses and others coming and settling in Victoria, bringing their skills with them and being fantastic carers, fantastic clinicians. That won’t change. In a practical sense, in the middle of August, there is a $1,500 payment for every single person working in our public healthcare system. And in the middle of September, there is a further $1,500 payment. So that’s a $3,000 bonus, that’s about saying thank you, but it’s also about recognising that these last three years have been incredibly challenging. Winter has been incredibly challenging. And it’s also about an incentive to do another shift. Maybe to come back to work after being away after a period of time. And also to your issue about perhaps contemplating about doing something else in their life, this is one way that we can send a message that you are highly valued and we want you to stay.
We’ve also got 1,000 student nurses – 2nd and 3rdyear students, who’ll be working in our hospitals under the supervision of a fully trained qualified nurse.
The key point is, you’ve got to have a plan. We’ve got a comprehensive plan. If there’s one message today, hopefully, if I can send the biggest thank you to those Filipino Victorians who work in our health system. They are just amazing people. We are deeply grateful for them, and we want more of them. We want these migration issues settled. We want visas granted. No strings. Get those highly committed, highly compassionate, highly qualified people here. Those who are trained in the Philippines are held in the highest regard from a skills point of view. So, we need more of them. Hopefully, the Federal Government will help with that.
Support for all students
RCL: How can the government help students, including international students, transition to the workforce following their studies?
DA: You’ve got high achieving students from across the Filipino community, particularly at that VCE level. We’ve got to make decisions about where they go, what they do. There are a number of programs around that whole care, caring economy. So we’re currently recruiting early childhood educators, mental health workers, hospital staff, family violence workers. For all the reforms that we’ve driven, they all require staff. We could put something together – (like) here’s a place, here’s a map of all the support, so that it’s well timed for the end of the year as students start to make their choices. As that whole sector (education) is rebooted globally, it was always competitive, it’s now even more competitive. We need to diversify and have more students from more countries rather than it being pretty heavily weighted to just one or two countries.
We want them to stay. (International Students) particularly in health, we should be saying to them, please stay. There is a job summit coming soon with the Prime Minister, and my pitch would be relating to these issues (Overseas trained, qualifications recognition, international students staying on, as well as being allowed to work while they are here).
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