Nurses' Wages

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:17): My question is to the Treasurer. Can you update the council on the ongoing negotiations with regard to nurses' wages?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:17): I am pleased to report to the council that there are some optimistic signs of progress in relation to the ongoing negotiations with the nurses' federation over a new enterprise bargaining arrangement. It is not as far advanced as the pleasing news that was made publicly available yesterday in relation to the teachers' EB, but the leadership of the nurses' federation, a little over a week or 10 days ago, did call off their current round of industrial action for a period of time—not indefinitely, to try to be accurate, but for a period of time—to allow what I think they have indicated are negotiations to continue with government negotiators.

The nurses' federation is looking at a range of options that the government negotiators have put to the nurses' federation within the broad parameters of a fair and reasonable salary increase that is fair to our hardworking nurses who work within our hospital system and also fair to the taxpayers of South Australia, who ultimately are the ones who have to meet the cost of enterprise bargaining negotiations.

The government position has been, as it has been with all of our hardworking Public Service staff, that the taxpayers can afford a fair and reasonable salary and conditions increase. The government has indicated publicly and privately that it is seeking reasonable negotiations that include costed offsets in terms of saving dollars to the taxpayers of South Australia without impacting on the effectiveness and efficiency of the delivery of health services, and there are sensible negotiations going on in relation to some of those issues.

It would not be productive at this stage to indicate publicly the nature of those negotiations for fear of potentially jeopardising their prospects of success, but as we are nearing the end of the calendar year and we are nearing Christmas, we are pleased, as members would know, to have reached an agreement with our Police Association of South Australia, working very effectively on behalf of our hardworking police officers. We are hopeful of reaching an agreement with our hardworking teachers in relation to the enterprise bargaining with their representatives. And as I said, some progress is being made in relation to the negotiations with the nurses' federation in relation to nurses.

There are a significant number of other enterprise agreements with other public sector unions representing other significant sections, including the salaried officers within the Public Service, which are represented by and large by the PSA. There are also to be negotiations with the ambos, representing our hardworking ambulance officers in the state, and there is the commencement of negotiations with the UFU in relation to our hardworking firefighters in South Australia.

So it is a never-ending line-up of public sector enterprise agreements which continue to be negotiated at differing points in the industrial cycle. In concluding, I want to pay tribute to the hardworking staff within what is known as IRAP, the industrial relations and policy section of Treasury. Treasury took over responsibility; it is under the very capable leadership of Mr Elbert Brooks, with hardworking staff.

I shouldn't mention any of the others but I guess two in particular, Mr Tom Kidman and Simon Johnson, who have been leading discussions in relation to education and health and nurses' EBs, deserve particular praise from their minister in relation to the long hours they put in and the hard work they undertake on behalf of the taxpayers, on behalf of the government, and more particularly in trying to reach an agreement with the representatives of the various public sector unions.