Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to make a contribution to this debate on this matter of public importance. I specifically want to talk about the need for governments as employers at all levels to stand up for workers and actually bargain in good faith, actually care about their workforce, about their wages, about their working conditions, their health and safety, and about them as people, as critical members of our communities delivering vital public services. For five long years here in Canberra and in my home state of Tasmania, we have endured Liberal governments that actively seek to undermine and undervalue the vital work of our public servants. Their key tactic is very low wage offers that would see workers' pay not keep up with inflation. And they use the threat of job losses if workers don't agree to their cruel requests. This appalling behaviour leaves many public servants in a bind: take a small wage increase, or take industrial action.

I'm extremely proud of the thousands of public servants across Tasmania who joined their union and together pushed for fairness. Of course, under the current system, the odds are stacked against workers, and a desperate Liberal government will do whatever it takes. They launch highly personal attacks on our public servants. Show me a nurse who doesn't want to care for a patient, a teacher who doesn't want to inspire a student or a public servant who doesn't want to make sure that our government functions. It's so easy for a minister to issue a threatening statement, to misrepresent the situation and to attack the workers.

We've seen a lot of it lately in Tasmania—desperate ministers are playing the worker rather than trying to negotiate in good faith or even to bargain at all. The Tasmanian Liberal government copied the federal Liberal approach to public sector wages, setting an indefinite wage cap below inflation and refusing to negotiate. After years of wages going backwards and as negotiations stalled, Tasmanian public servants reluctantly launched some industrial action. When the Liberal government refused to negotiate, the public servants, rightly, increased their industrial action. So far, all we've seen are personal attacks and misrepresentation of the industrial action.

Just this week, the Tasmanian Liberal police minister, Mr Michael Ferguson, launched a bizarre and untrue attack on workers in Forensic Science Services Tasmania, inaccurately claiming that their measured and sensible industrial action would make Tasmania less safe and allow crooks to get off scot-free, with up to 15 criminals unable to be pursued by police each week. He then said that victims of crime would suffer the most from the union's tactics. Of course, the facts couldn't be further from this. The public servants then cleared up the matter: their industrial action would simply create a backlog which could at any time be resolved with additional resources allocated by the government. What a pathetic beat-up by a desperate government, out of touch with Tasmanians.

Of course, it doesn't end there. The Tasmanian police minister is also the Tasmanian health minister. He has overseen a health crisis that has plagued our state for years and he's refusing to bargain in good faith with our state's overworked and underpaid nurses and midwives, who have also been forced to take industrial action. This is action which, of course, limits activity in our state's hospitals and action which the minister should recognise is entirely within the rights of the nurses and midwives, and which he should seek to end by presenting a fair pay offer to Tasmanian public servants—not a pay offer which is hundreds of dollars a year below the inflation rate, not an offer which undermines Tasmania's ability to attract new nurses and not an offer that would make our nurses the lowest paid in the country when our cost of living continues to rise.

This pattern is repeated across the state, with teachers, nurses, firefighters, cleaners, paramedics and others taking reasonable action in pursuit of a decent pay rise. I commend Tasmanian union members for their unity, their courage and their camaraderie across the movement. I say firmly to the Tasmanian government: end this impasse, recognise that your offer is too low, come to the table with a fair deal and negotiate—and I mean negotiate fairly and equitably with those who the workers have chosen to represent them. Tasmanians who are public servants deserve a pay rise and they deserve a decent pay rise.