Enterprise Bargaining

The Hon. C. BONAROS (14:46): Supplementary question: can I take it from the Treasurer's response just now that he would agree that other essential service employees in health, mental health, aged care and disability services who have also worked tirelessly throughout the COVID-19 crisis in particular, are also worthy of the same 2 per cent increase?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:47): I thank the member for her question. Indeed, we acknowledge all of the hardworking public servants. Indeed, on behalf of the government I have rejected what I think has been ill-informed criticism of some public servants who are working their backsides off during the global pandemic doing a range of things, such as the high-profile health work that the nurses and doctors and others undertake but also, I think, the hard work of an administrative nature that many public servants do in trying to get out cash grants and various levels of assistance.

I think it is important for us to acknowledge the hard work that our public servants across the board conduct. All of them deserve reasonable and sensible salary increases that taxpayers can afford. In relation to the negotiations that are going on with two other key unions, the PSA in relation to the salaried employee workers and the UWU and a number of other unions in relation to the weekly paid group within the public sector, I am optimistic that we might be able to reach agreement with those.

They are not as far advanced—certainly the PSA negotiation perhaps at this stage is not as far advanced as the nurses federation's public statement today—but certainly from the government's viewpoint we continue to sit down in a reasonable fashion with the union negotiators to try to hammer out what is a reasonable agreement for workers but clearly a reasonable agreement also for the taxpayers of South Australia in terms of what they can afford.

We have said for nearly 18 months now that we cannot afford 3 and 3½ per cent salary increases. Ultimately, we have settled disputes in and around about 2 per cent for a range of public sector negotiations, sometimes slightly above, if there have been trade-offs in terms of productivity offsets, sometimes at the lower end, if there have been no productivity trade-offs and it has just been a rollover of existing conditions. I know the government has entered the negotiations and, I believe, conducted the negotiations with a clear set of principles in mind; that is, we can afford reasonable wage increases and will continue to do so.

In relation to the two other major groups, there are a number of other minor—I shouldn't say minor in terms of importance but in terms of numbers of employees—EBs going on in addition to the two larger ones, which are the salaried and the weekly paid. With all of those, we are entering it with the same riding instructions in terms of trying to reach a sensible agreement. In terms of the two to which I suspect the member might be referring—weekly paid and salaried—I hope we might be able to reach a sensible agreement in the not-too-distant future.