Australian Unity Pay Rates 2026: Carer, Nurse & Support Staff Pay

Australian Unity is a national member-owned health, wealth and care group, and one of the larger aged care employers in this list. Its care and community arm runs residential aged care homes, retirement communities and in-home care services across several states, with a workforce spanning personal care workers and nurses in residential facilities, home care workers visiting clients in their own homes, and hospitality, lifestyle and administrative staff across its retirement communities.

Residential and home care roles sit on the Aged Care Award 2010, covering the direct care and general (support) streams, while registered and enrolled nurses employed in Australian Unity's homes are covered by the Nurses Award 2020. Australian Unity has registered enterprise agreements for parts of its aged care and retirement communities business — listed below where our corpus holds them — and any agreement in place must leave employees better off overall than these award rates.

The federal awards relevant to Australian Unity roles:

• Aged Care Award 2010 (MA000018)
• Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Australian Unity Limited declared 7,616 employees across 6 reporting entities — 9.3% casual and 80.2% women. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

After the aged care work value case, the Aged Care Award 2010 (MA000018) direct-care ladder (personal care workers, assistants in nursing, care team leaders) is:

The FWC publishes these direct-care rates weekly; hourly figures are the weekly rate ÷ 38, matching the Fair Work pay guide presentation.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Catering, cleaning, laundry, maintenance, lifestyle and administration staff sit on the general stream:

Weekend, shift and public holiday penalties apply on top — the aged care penalty schedule is not tabled here, so check a specific roster with the penalty rates calculator.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Enterprise agreements set rates above the award, with their own classification structures and allowances. Current Australian Unity agreements in our corpus (2 in total):

• Australian Unity Residential Aged Care & Retirement Communities Enterprise Agreement 2024 — approved June 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2028.
• Australian Unity Residential Aged Care & Retirement Communities Enterprise Agreement 2024 — approved June 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2028.

We don't reproduce agreement dollar figures here — the agreement covering your site, state and stream is the document to read. Find your agreement, then your classification, then your pay point, and compare it with your payslip. The award tables on this page are the floor every one of these agreements must beat.

The patterns worth checking on a Australian Unity payslip:

• Wrong direct-care level — Cert III personal care workers sit at direct care level 3, not level 1 or 2; medication-competent and senior carers higher again.
• Unpaid handover and documentation before and after the rostered shift.
• Sleepovers, broken shifts and short-notice changes paid without the award's allowances.
• Agreement rates frozen below the award's post-work-value floor — the award now overtakes some older agreement grids.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.