Public Sector Industrial Relations

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:16): Supplementary question: will the minister be supporting the calls of the unions he mentioned to provide thankyou payments to nurses and other workers in our hospital sector?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:16): I thank the honourable member for his question. These have certainly come up during enterprise bargaining negotiations. We will continue, as we have done, to say that nothing is off the table, unlike the former government who had an absolute policy that there would be no back pay even when industrial agreements had expired. We don't take that approach and we bargain in good faith.