NSW agreement reached after months-long dispute
Paramedics in New South Wales have accepted a record pay offer from the state government fending off a mass walkout on January the first. Senior paramedics will receive a 29 per cent pay rise over four years under the deal at a cost of half a billion dollars to taxpayers.
Transcript
00:00 This has been an incredibly hard-fought case between the Health Services Union and the
00:07 State Government. For 18 months they have been fighting about paramedics wages in NSW.
00:13 The Health Services Union says that NSW paramedics have been going to other states and that less
00:18 than 5% are not currently considering quitting the service. But this deal today, the Health
00:24 Services Union says, has solved that problem and will keep NSW paramedics in this state.
00:30 Under this deal that has been negotiated there will be an average 25% pay increase for paramedics.
00:37 So for example, paramedics with 6 years of experience will go from an average salary
00:42 of $79,000 to $103,000. For critical care paramedics in the state, they'll go from a
00:49 $98,000 a year salary to around $127,000. The HSU has said that a third of the state's
00:59 6,000 paramedics successfully forced this action by refusing to renew their professional
01:05 registration. Basically meaning that about a third of the state's workforce would be
01:10 unable to work come the 1st of January. There's been a flurry of late night meetings, of phone
01:17 calls leading up to today and the Health Services Union Secretary Gerard Hayes was visibly emotional
01:23 today as he explained the toll that this has taken on him.
01:27 This has been so difficult. We could not be here to look after the community of NSW without
01:34 the dedication that our members have.
01:41 This is a four year deal. The Treasurer says that paramedics will start to see their pay
01:46 increase from the 1st of January. The biggest part of that pay increase will come in the
01:50 first two years. And it does leave open the question of nurses and teachers and other
01:56 public sector workers who have not quite finished their pay negotiations, who are looking to
02:01 re-sign negotiations with the government in the next couple of years. Will they too see
02:06 pay rises quite as big as this?
02:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]