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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Health Sector Industrial Action

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): Supplementary.

The SPEAKER: Okay, we will see if it's a supplementary.

Mr TEAGUE: It is a question to the Premier. In light of the Premier's answer, having referred to nurses, doctors and allied health workers, including psychologists—indeed, the industrial process generally—why is there such significant industrial action across the South Australian health sector under this government?

The SPEAKER: That's a separate question.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:26): I am happy to answer it. I am not too sure if there is widespread industrial disputation across the public health sector at all. That's not to say there might not be disputation in the future. I can't predict the future, clearly. But I think it's fair to say—because the implication of the deputy leader's question is that somehow the government has dropped the ball with respect to IR and health. Well, let me speak a bit more plainly about this.

If I was a healthcare professional in the public sector and I had been subjected to real wage cuts because of the policy of a former government, I might be a little bit grumpy about it. I mean, imagine having a government of this state during a pandemic going to our healthcare workers and saying, 'Sorry, real wage cut for you.' Or saying to our ambulance officers, 'Sorry, no pay rise,' I think for years. I think they went for four years or something without a pay rise. I mean, they would be forgiven for being a little bit frustrated at policies that have been imposed upon them. This government has an opportunity to rectify that.

Mr Teague: Why so much industrial action?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The deputy leader says, 'Why so much industrial action?' I am not too sure which action he is talking about. What we are committed to is very, very different to the policy that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was very happy to be party to when he sat around the cabinet table, albeit in a separate construct. When the Deputy Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table and supported policies of the past, that was his prerogative.

I want to assure the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that this government's policy in respect of wages and conditions in the healthcare sector and industrial relations more broadly could not be more different to yours—could not be more different. We don't just sit around and talk about good faith negotiations, we act upon it, and we have delivered a number of new enterprise agreements.

There is always argy-bargy and occasionally there will be disputation, and this government might not be immune from that either, but our starting position is a whole lot better than your finishing position. That will always be true for a Labor government that genuinely values the work of people within our public sector.

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