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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-05-13 Daily Xml
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Public Sector Employees

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:26): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the minister for industrial relations regarding public workers.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Has my leave been approved?

The PRESIDENT: I said, 'Is leave granted? Leave is granted.' If your Leader of the Opposition would be silent, you would hear that I have granted you leave. Let's have a go now.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: I'm sure the Treasurer is very excited.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Let's do this.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Health, disability and care workers are the front line of the COVID-19 crisis. On behalf of these workers, which include hospital orderlies and those who sterilise equipment, I understand the United Workers Union asked to roll over an existing agreement to maintain conditions until June 2021 with a 2 per cent pay increase. This would appear to be in line with the budget and other enterprise agreements. Despite this, the Treasurer was quoted in InDaily last week, saying that he did not support a rollover of existing conditions, and I quote, 'We want to see significant changes if we could.'

The changes the government are demanding include making it easier to cut jobs and to allow privatisation. Yesterday, the minister spoke about a pay deal for nurses, and I quote:

…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.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Why is the government prioritising changes to working conditions during the biggest crisis in living memory?

2. Why is the government trying to remove conditions that protect front-line health and disability workers from job cuts and privatisation?

3. What other significant changes does the Treasurer want to see?

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Treasurer, when the Hon. Mr Wortley can zip it, please provide an answer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:29): Mr President, thank you for your protection. I thank the honourable member for her question, but I will refer the honourable member to the answer I gave to the Hon. Ms Bonaros yesterday, who asked the same question. I will briefly repeat the answer to the question that I gave the Hon. Ms Bonaros, who I think asked a supplementary question along those lines.

That is, I would have indicated yesterday or I did indicate yesterday my enormously high regard for many of the hardworking members of the Public Service, and on behalf of the government members I pay tribute not just to the front-line workers such as nurses and doctors and police, of course, who have attracted most of the front-line attention but to the many other hardworking members of the Public Service, some of whom the honourable member has included in her question.

I did respond yesterday to broadly the UWU claim. I think I might have even referred to the UWU, who are representing a group of unions; there are five or six unions, I think, who are involved in the weekly paid group of public servants. The UWU just happen to be the lead union in relation to that particular negotiation. I have indicated—I cannot remember the exact words I used—that I was hopeful that we might be able to reach agreement with one or two of the other public sector unions in the not-too-distant future. I think I probably indicated yesterday that whilst we weren't as far advanced with one or two of the other unions as we were with the nurses federation, as I said I was hopeful we might be able to conclude agreements with some of the other public sector unions.

The honourable member's characterisation of my quote in the InDaily article last week didn't match the actual quote when she read it. I think she did include the final words which were 'the government's preferred position' or 'my preferred position' or something. Clearly, when you go into a negotiation—the government went into the negotiation pre the COVID-19 pandemic with a position; the union went into their negotiation with a position. The union has significantly reduced the extent of its salary demand which it made at the start. The government has been prepared to negotiate.

I am sure the honourable member, given her background, is probably familiar with enterprise bargaining. That is how enterprise bargaining negotiations are conducted—if both sides enter into the negotiations in good faith. You start off with your initial positions and you hopefully sit down and come out with a position which both sides can be comfortable with. As I said yesterday in relation to the nurses federation's characterisation of where the negotiations were, they saw what they achieved as a big win for nurses. I am pleased to hear that they believe that to be the case.

The government continues the negotiations with the UWU and in relation to the salaried workers group the PSA is the lead group there. As I said, I don't intend to conduct a public negotiation in the parliament, much as I might be encouraged to do so with the honourable member. We will respectfully conduct those negotiations with the union negotiators and with the government negotiators.

As I made clear to the UWU representatives when they sought my intervention, I said, 'Look, I'm not here to negotiate'—by 'here' I mean it was a teleconference, but 'I'm not present at this teleconference to negotiate an enterprise bargaining deal with you. I will listen to your concerns, but ultimately you need to sit down with the government negotiators, they will take instructions from me, they will negotiate with you, you will negotiate on behalf of your members and ultimately they will put a recommendation to me.' So I am hopeful that we might be able to reach an agreement in the not-too-distant future.

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