House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-13 Daily Xml

Contents

Public Sector Enterprise Agreement

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:07): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I am pleased to inform the house that a very short time ago I received the official results of the ballot for the Wages Parity Enterprise Agreement: Salaried 2014. The results show that 71.95 per cent of those voting supported the new agreement. This is a clear endorsement of the government's approach to reforming public sector employment arrangements.

The WPEA Salaried Agreement applies to approximately 37,000 employees in a range of salaried occupations, such as general administrative employees, legal officers, correctional officers, professional officers (such as librarians, architects and engineers), allied health professionals (such as physiotherapists, radiographers and social workers), medical scientists, operational employees (such as youth workers and residential care workers) and technical officers.

I am delighted that an overwhelming majority of South Australian public servants have voted in favour of this agreement and I appreciate the work of the PSA in reaching this outcome. My thanks go to the public servants who took time to consider the proposed agreement and voted in favour of our proposition. This government is committed to fundamental reform as detailed in the 'A Modern Public Service' policy issued before the state election.

The centrepiece of the new agreement is the introduction of a new redeployment, retraining and redundancy policy which focuses on the redeployment and retraining of excess employees covered by the proposed enterprise agreement. This will play a crucial role in supporting the government's vision of a modern public sector that works together with citizens, businesses and communities to deliver results for South Australia. Once the agreement is approved by the Industrial Relations Court, we will be able to implement the reforms that will allow us to develop a more modern and efficient Public Service.