2023-01-30
Greens MP and health spokesperson Cate Faehrmann joined Greens candidate for the south coast, Councillor Amanda Findley, in Nowra today to announce the party’s plan to provide a real pay rise for nurses, midwives and paramedics, arguing this is necessary after a decade of effectively pay cuts for frontline healthcare workers under the NSW Liberal-Nationals.
The Greens plan will:
- Legislate to remove the wage cap and institute minimum pay rises for Nurses, Midwives and Paramedics in line with CPI
- Give an instant 15% pay rise to Nurses, Midwives and Paramedics
- Lock in pay rises for Nurses, Midwives and Paramedics of 2% above inflation for the next 4 years.
Quotes attributable to Cate Faehrmann, Greens MP and health spokesperson:
“Senior staff have been leaving our public healthcare system in droves, in part because they have been taking real wage cuts while their working conditions have deteriorated,” said Ms Faehrmann.
“As staff quit, conditions deteriorate even further which has a knock-on effect of even more staff quitting. While mandated minimum nurse-to-patient ratios are one essential part of the solution, a real wage increase for nurses, midwives and paramedics is the other.
“Nurses, midwives and paramedics have worked under shocking conditions throughout the pandemic, including gruelling double shifts and inadequate staffing levels. It’s therefore a bit of a kick in the guts by the government to sit back and watch as their wages to go backwards.
“A 15% salary increase will go a long way towards reversing the effective pay cut that this Government has inflicted on our nurses, midwives and paramedics for more than a decade.
“There is no cap to the sacrifices we ask our frontline healthcare workers to make every single day, so why is there a cap on their wages? The Greens believe it’s time to replace the wages cap with a wages floor, and that’s why we will legislate to remove the wages cap and institute minimum pay increases in line with inflation.
“The Greens plan will show nurses, midwives and paramedics the respect they deserve while attracting skilled workers back to the profession and inspiring others to join it,” said Cate.
Quotes Attributable to Amanda Findley, Greens Mayor of Shoalhaven and candidate for the South Coast:
“The South Coast ranks 10th in NSW with almost 18,000 people requiring health care for long term conditions.
With nurses leaving in droves due to the conditions it is little wonder that Shoalhaven District Hospital is chronically understaffed, and regularly suffers from bed block and ambulance ramping.
Capping wages leaves South Coast residents wonder how on earth the hospital will be staff when 1/2 billion of upgrades take place.
We all have friends in nursing and we see the strain in their faces every day it's about time the government stopped treating them like second rate citizens.”
The Australia Institute: The Cumulative Costs of Wage Caps for Essential Service Workers in NSW
By the 2021-22 financial year, wages for an experienced nurse/midwife working full-time were $355 lower per week as a result of pay caps in place since 2012.
On a cumulative basis, this wage suppression amounts to a combined loss of $80,000 in wages since the caps were imposed
If the pay caps are retained, those losses will accumulate further over the next two financial years to $390 per week in lost wages and a cumulative loss of $120,000 per nurse by 2023-24.
An experienced nurse/midwife will have lost $12,500 in superannuation by 2023-24 as a results of pay caps since 2012.
Contact: Jacob Miller 0428 837 292