The Opposition welcomes a pay rise for NSW nurses and midwives but is calling on the Government to ensure there is no cuts to health services as a result of this decision.
While the Minns Labor Government is claiming an ‘historic’ win, the reality is they were dragged kicking and screaming to the state’s Industrial Court because they couldn’t reach an agreement with the union.
Shadow Minister for Health and Regional Health, Sarah Mitchell, welcomed the pay rise for our state’s hardworking nurses and midwives, and called on the Minns Labor Government to guarantee that NSW patients and communities will not lose out.
“Our nurses and midwives do an incredible job in helping people in their most vulnerable moments and they have been consistently let down by a government that has repeatedly cut the health budget, forced regional people to travel further and wait longer to receive essential healthcare, and refused to have an inquiry into Western Sydney Health,” Mrs Mitchell said.
“The Government’s own lawyers argued in this case that service cuts may be required to fund any increase above what was already budgeted, and today the Health Minister failed to guarantee to patients and the wider community that no services will be cut and no hospital projects will be delayed by this decision.”
Shadow Treasurer, Scott Farlow, said that today’s IRC decision once again exposes Labor’s big pre-election lie that their wages policy would have no impact on the NSW budget.
“The NSW Treasury deputy secretary’s submission to the IRC raised concerns about the impact the union’s pay offer would have on the state’s return to surplus, that such an offer would have to be debt-funded and may negatively impact the state’s credit rating,” Mr Farlow said.
“While today’s decision is lower than the union’s demands, the Treasurer has failed to act in an economically responsible way by giving clear answers to taxpayers about what impact this decision will have on the state’s bottom line and has instead resorted to scaremongering.”
“Labor are trying to spin this decision as a win for their wages policy, but the reality is that they have fought this decision tooth and nail because their wages policy was built on a lie that it would come at no cost to the taxpayer.”