Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to express my support for salaried doctors who are presently facing an unprecedented attack from the Newman LNP government on their right to bargain collectively. There are some new statutory independent contract arrangements for salaried doctors in Queensland. Among other things I am concerned that the chief executive of Queensland Health has the power to issue directives, without consultation, that override salaried doctors' employment contracts. In other words: one party to the employment contract has the power to unilaterally vary it; the laws are aimed at excluding people from collectively bargaining; the individual contracts exclude people from claiming their dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable and from a host of other rights and protections under Queensland's industrial relations laws; and the laws invalidate private practice terms in existing agreements—a form of economic duress apparently aimed at leaving doctors with no practical choice but to accept one of the new individual contracts.

I am also concerned with the way these new laws are being implemented, and, particularly, I note that, as the usual dispute settlement provisions of the industrial relations laws will not apply, there will be no convenient and inexpensive means of resolving disputes about the contracts—doctors will have to resort to private mediation and will not have the right to be legally represented; the LNP government has given no guarantees about fair rostering—they have committed only that rosters will be developed in consultation with the doctor; there is no set salary that must be applied across an entire classification; and, most concerning, there is no commitment that the doctor must be better off overall compared with the enterprise bargaining agreement.

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