27 March 2007

Nurses accuse Howard of hypocrisy over nurse pay comments.

Regular federal attacks on nurses' pay rises confirm the Howard Government is about cutting nurses pay.
Just have a look at what it has done in aged care.

The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) today accused the prime minister, John Howard, of hypocrisy for telling federal parliament that nurses are being ‘grossly underpaid’ by State governments, while nurses in the federally-funded aged care sector remain the worst paid nurses in the country.

Mr Howard told federal parliament yesterday (26 March) that:

I happen to take the view that nurses in this country, given their responsibilities and the onerous work they carry out, are grossly underpaid. I happen to think that State governments should be a lot more generous with the nurses of this country, and I would give some advice to the re-elected Premier of New South Wales: you ought to pay nurses more generously.

QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said these comments are an insult to nurses who know only too well that his own government has been driving down wages and conditions for nurses in the aged care sector for more than 10 years.

“The Howard Government has consistently refused to introduce a regulatory system that ensures aged care nurses get fair pay and as a result aged care nurses across Queensland earn considerably less than public hospital nurses,” Ms Hawksworth said.

“The only real chance aged care nurses had to put their case was before the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. However, today is the first anniversary of the day the Howard Government took that right away. On March 27 last year it unilaterally removed most aged care nurses from their State award and took away their right to have enterprise bargaining disputes arbitrated by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.

“For example, under Howard Government funding arrangements nurses working for Queensland’s largest aged care employer, Blue Care, are way behind Queensland public hospital nurses. A full-time public hospital Registered Nurse Year 1.8 is currently on $1104.18 for a 38-hour week.
 
“A similar nurse at Blue Care is on $988.28 – a difference of $115.90 per week or more than $5000.00 per year. The situation is similar across the aged care sector, which means the prime minister’s claims about State governments are rank hypocrisy.

“His comments also contradict many recent attacks by federal Liberals on State-based pay rises for nurses and at no stage has Mr Howard ever pulled any of his colleagues into line on this issue.

“Did Mr Howard pull the Member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay, into line for his intemperate attack on last year’s agreed pay rise for Queensland public hospital nurses? In Federal Parliament last year (9.04pm on Tuesday, 13 June), Mr Lindsay opened his speech on the issue with:

I rise to bring to the attention of the parliament my concerns about the impact of the Queensland government’s offer to irresponsibly increase wage levels for public sector nurses in Queensland.

“I can’t recall the prime minister ever contradicting him. I also don’t recall him pulling the former Ageing Minister, Santo Santoro, into line when he complained (Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, 29 May 2006) that recent nurse pay rises are “making it difficult to operate nursing homes” and that “State industrial relations commissions continued to approve large pay rises for nurses within a sector already struggling with staff shortages”.

“Or what did he do to pull his Health Minister, Tony Abbott, into line after Mr Abbott attacked excessive pay rises for public sector workers, including teachers and nurses, in a Sydney Morning Herald article on February 14 this year?

“The fact is, Queensland nurses, across all sectors, have every reason to be fearful of this federal government’s industrial relations laws. If the prime minister genuinely believes nurses are ‘grossly underpaid’ he has a chance to take a lead and ensure aged care nurses receive the pay rates he thinks they deserve. Because for the last ten years he has been holding aged care nurses back and no matter how many times we have warned him he has consistently refused to fix the problem,” Ms Hawksworth said.