Public Sector Enterprise Agreement

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:16): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector a question on the topic of public sector wages.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Since 11 September this year, the government has been offering the state's 400,000 or so public servants a 10.5 per cent pay rise over three years in the enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations. The union demand is 20 per cent in 18 months. The members clearly support the unions, if the evidence yesterday of over 4,000 public servants who stopped work and were outside on our steps and undertook a half-day stoppage is anything to go by. Indeed, it's no surprise when essential workers simply can't afford their rent and other basics and those people we rely on to do jobs such as corrections, youth justice, courts administration and child protection are finding that they have fallen far behind their award safety net.

Indeed, Charlotte Watson, the new General Secretary of the PSA, was quoted yesterday saying, 'Our members have lost the equivalent of 20¢ in every dollar they were earning in 2015.' We know we have a cost-of-living crisis. So my question to the minister is: can he indicate what the Malinauskas government will be doing for the hardworking members of our public sector who stopped work yesterday because they cannot afford to live while our government funds things such as LIV Golf, which does not need our money?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:18): I thank the honourable member for her question, and I do acknowledge her very, very longstanding commitment to supporting working people and the rights of trade unions in South Australia. The honourable member has been at the forefront in this chamber over many, many years. She has brought before us time and again legislation such as to have a standalone criminal offence for industrial manslaughter. I am very proud that, heeding the honourable member's calls and following in her footsteps the number of times this legislation has come before us, we have passed that in this term of government.

In relation to negotiation with public sector unions, I have stood in this place a number of times in answer to questions to say that we will bargain in good faith. That was not something the former government did. The former government set arbitrary limits on what they would bargain on; for example, 'There will be no back pay. No ifs, whats and buts.' We haven't put those arbitrary limits on and we have been bargaining in good faith.

It is true that almost every public sector agreement has been up for negotiation during this calendar year. So far this year we have reached agreement with the unions representing public sector workers. That has been voted up by their membership in relation to allied health professionals and in relation to salaried medical officers in our public hospitals. Both those agreements have been voted up and they have been around 3 to 4 per cent per year as the headline wage increases, with other terms and conditions, of course.

We have seen more recently, in the last few weeks, the weekly paid agreement that covers people like disability support workers, childcare workers, and those who work in a hospital, such as hospital orderlies and sterilisation technicians. Those were agreements with similar headline wages but which recognised the very low-paid nature of some of that work, where the membership—I think it was something like 90 per cent of members—are paid under $65,000 a year.

There were significant other parts to that, such as federal parity for modern awards that have seen significant increases in aged care and disability care to make sure we match those as part of that agreement, amongst other conditions and wage outcomes. Just in the last week, we have seen an in-principle agreement with the United Fire Fighters Union for the South Australian firefighters. Again, that is a 3 to 4 per cent per year wage increase.

So we have been negotiating in very good faith. I know that myself and other ministers are meeting very regularly with public sector unions which are still negotiating agreements. In relation to the quantum being sought, 20 per cent over 18 months is almost 13½ per cent per year. That will be very difficult, given the quantum we have seen for other public sector unions.

I have been invited on a number of occasions, particularly by members of the crossbench, to engage in negotiations in the chamber, but I am going to resist doing that and we will continue negotiating with the public sector unions. We have said publicly that the equivalent of almost 13½ per cent per year, given the other EBs that we have settled, would be very difficult and, I would suggest, impossible to do given the parameters that other people have reached. But we will continue those negotiations. There are meetings scheduled, I think in the not-too-distant future, with the PSA and a couple of other public sector unions that we continue to negotiate with.