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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-04 Daily Xml
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Metropolitan Fire Service Enterprise Agreement

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (15:05): Hear, hear! Thank you, Mr President. I don't know why I said, 'Hear, hear!' I am just thinking about the win tonight. I seek leave—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ben Hood, if you are going to keep that up you can just sit down, right?

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: Yes, sir.

The PRESIDENT: Just show due respect to the mighty Crows. Now, get on with it.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Industrial Relations regarding the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service enterprise agreement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: On the same day as the nurses' union voted down their pay offer, hundreds of firefighters of the United Firefighters Union of South Australia voted down their latest pay offer in negotiations, claiming that they are increasingly asked to do more than fight fires, without proper compensation or training. This comes only a few months after allowance payment issues that went before the Employment Tribunal, described by the UFU as one of the worst cases of wage theft in state history. The government's response to that issue appeared to strain the relationship between the UFU and the government. My question to the minister is: does the minister concede that his government has to date mishandled the relationship with the UFU and its members they represent, and is this mishandling negatively affecting EBA negotiations?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:07): I thank the honourable member for his question. There is a very, very different way in which negotiations have been undertaken between public sector unions and the government compared to the previous government, which was led by the Hon. Rob Lucas.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Rob Lucas, you said.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The Hon. Rob Lucas, who was the leader of the former Liberal government, compared to this current government. In the term of the last government, the then Minister for Industrial Relations regularly derided people who led unions as 'union bosses', using the term in a pejorative sense, whereas I think many of us on this side actually see that as one of the greatest credits you can give to someone who dedicates their life to looking after the interests of working people. We certainly won't be taking cheap shots at those who do those sorts of things.

Again, very much unlike the last government, we haven't put down arbitrary limits on what we do for bargaining. We will bargain in good faith and discuss anything that is put on the table. In regard to taking off the table any prospect of back pay, the former Liberal government, when enterprise agreements had concluded and they were—for example, in terms of the ambulance workers—some years out of date, refused any prospect of back pay. That is something we have done very differently—very, very differently—here in our government. We came very early on and had an agreement with the ambulance officers, including back pay for the years that the former Liberal government refused that back pay.

Another thing that is very, very different in this government is that, in agreements we have struck recently, we actually give public sector workers a real wage rise. This is compared to many, many years of the former Liberal government's agreements that were in the order of 1.5 per cent per year, delivering real wage cuts. So there is a very stark difference between the industrial relations platforms that the former Liberal government took and the platforms this government takes—real wage cuts for public sector workers and real wage increases. We will continue to negotiate in good faith, not arbitrarily rule things out and in with public sector unions.

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