mecwacare Pay Rates 2026: Carer, Nurse & Support Staff Pay

mecwacare is a Victorian not-for-profit running residential aged care homes, home care, disability and community services across Melbourne and regional Victoria, with a heavily casualised direct care workforce alongside its core of registered and enrolled nurses. Its teams also include home care and disability support workers, and hospitality, lifestyle and administrative staff.

Residential aged care roles at mecwacare are covered by the Aged Care Award 2010 across the direct care and general streams, and its nurses by the Nurses Award 2020. mecwacare has enterprise agreements registered with the Fair Work Commission (listed below where our corpus holds them); whichever applies to your role, it has to leave you better off overall than these award figures.

The federal awards relevant to mecwacare roles:

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

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Mecwa declared 3,723 employees — 45.9% casual and 78.4% 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 mecwacare agreements in our corpus (2 in total):

• MECWA (trading as mecwacare), ANMF and HWU Enterprise Agreement 2024 — approved December 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2026.
• MECWA (trading as mecwacare), ANMF and HSU Enterprise Agreement 2023 — approved September 2023, nominal expiry 30 June 2024.

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 mecwacare 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.