Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

There is one way that the nurses could receive a pay rise tomorrow—that is, if the Leader of the Opposition picked up the phone to the premiers and asked his mates to give the nurses a pay rise. The nurses are employed by the state Labor governments in state hospitals. I make this observation. If the Labor Party really care about nurses, if the Labor Party really care about teachers—and they employ, through the state governments, those nurses and those teachers—I urge them to do the right thing and pay those hard workers more money.

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