Labor MPI: Public Sector Wages
[12.03 p.m.]
Ms BURNET (Clark) - Honourable Speaker, I welcome this matter of public importance on public sector wage negotiations from Labor. We know the Health Department budget is ballooning because of the exorbitant bill for locums. Just yesterday, the ABC reported that the Tasmanian government spent more than $105 million last year to employ temporary nurses. This is not a good way of running a health department.
We know that teachers are leaving the profession in droves in Tasmania and that principals are struggling to staff our classrooms, and there are health workers and other workers right across the board in the public sector who are suffering because of lack of negotiating by the government.
While it is not the silver bullet, providing reasonable pay and conditions is a significant factor in being able to adequately recruit and retain staff. This is not about pay and conditions. It's about a statement by the government that it doesn't value teachers, nurses, allied health professionals and other public sector workers covered by these agreements as much as it values police, and we've heard about that during Question time. It's also about fairness. The wage negotiation has gone on for too long. It's having significant impacts on the public, from parents who have to take a day off work when schools shut down, to patients who are having their surgeries cancelled, to the poor staff and managers at the hospitals, who are trying to cover all the tasks that are not being completed during the stop-work actions. Those stop-work actions are being taken by HACSU, and they're not done lightly. Yesterday it was in the north-west, today it's in the north, and tomorrow it will be in the south. I commend those workers for standing up for their rights to take this industrial action.
State servants are the backbone of providing services for Tasmanians. They have the same pressures as other Tasmanians: cost-of-living pressures, housing and burgeoning transport costs because of international wars. They deserve respect from this government. I've written to the Premier seeking his government to go back in good faith and negotiate with health workers. Health workers do not take industrial action lightly, but that's what they're forced to do. The Premier and his government need to end this and adhere to previous undertakings.