NSW Nurses and midwives walk off the job after pay negotiations fail

Thousands of nurses and midwives in New South Wales have walked off the job as part of an ongoing pay dispute with the state government

Transcript

00:00Rallies have been held across the state today, from regional New South Wales to here in Parramatta

00:07in Sydney's west, as part of a 12 and a half hour strike by nurses and midwives who are

00:12fighting for better pay. Even this morning there were scores of nurses outside Premier

00:18Chris Mins's office in Cogra. Nurses are fighting for a one year 15% pay rise, but the state

00:26government has rejected that and offered them a three year 10 and a half percent pay

00:31rise instead. Nurses here say that's not good enough and that they are the lowest paid nurses

00:37in the country. I'm here because I love my job and I don't want our job to be diminished

00:43any further than it already is. I think that we should not be fighting for this all the

00:47time. I've been a nurse for 31 years working for New South Wales Health and it's been constant.

00:53During a budget estimates hearing, Health Minister Ryan Parr came under fire from the

00:57opposition for not having resolved this ongoing pay dispute sooner. Mr Park apologised but

01:03said the government and union had been left in a difficult situation due to the previous

01:07government's public sector wage cap. To make that up in a single year is simply not possible

01:14at the moment. Now that doesn't mean that we're not at the table, it doesn't mean that

01:20we're not working through the issues. I didn't want to get to this stage, I didn't say that

01:25this was the path that I wanted nurses and midwives to go down. Yesterday the Industrial

01:29Relations Commission ordered the nurses to not go ahead with this strike action but it's

01:35clear that they have decided to go ahead with it regardless. Skeleton staffing is expected

01:41across public hospitals today and patients are being warned to expect longer wait times

01:46in emergency departments.

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