Health Services Union NT Branch Secretary Billy Elrick says allied health workers have rejected the government’s pay offer of a 3 per cent increase claiming they are among the lowest paid in the country and are taking industrial action with rallies held across the NT yesterday

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, there's a push happening across the territory this week

(00:02):
as Allied Health workers rally over what they say is
an unfair deal from the Finocchiaro government. They've been negotiating
for over six months, and they've urged members to vote
no to that proposed enterprise agreement, with the ballot closing yesterday.
Now joining us on the line is Health Services Union
NT branch Secretary Billy l. Reck. Good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You, Billy, Good morning, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
No worries at all. Now, Billy, what are your concerns
with this payoffer from the Northern Territory government and why
are members so strongly opposed?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It just simply wasn't good enough. To put it directly,
it was only a three percent pay increase a year,
with not many other changes or increases to benefits. Outside
of that. Allot Health is going through an international workforce crisis.
Certain areas of Allied Health, like occupational therapy, there's just
not enough staff around the world to fill the position

(01:00):
that is needed. And also, after years of the wage
freeze and pretty poor performance and recognition to Allied Health
by the Territory government, we now have some of the
last wages. So a four year deal walking in three
percent a year is going to take the territory from
some of the best paid jobs to the worst. And

(01:20):
it's just going to impact services and we can't tolerate it.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Billy, talk us through, because there'll be some people listening
this morning that are going, Katie, I don't know exactly
what jobs some of those allied health jobs are, so
give our listeners a bit of an explanation.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Absolutely. So. Allied health's an umbrella term, and you know,
it can often be easily described as anyone who's not
a doctor and a nurse, but the ones that most
people would recognize the your physios, your psychologists, your occupational therapists, dietitians,
speech pathologists, radiographers, medical scientists. So it is a pretty
broad umbrella term to describe a lot of different professionals.

(01:56):
What they generally share in common is a highly qualified
and educated individual. They work in a clinical space, and
they provide specialist.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Care and well and they are incredibly important. You know,
some of the some of just the recent emails that
I've received over the last couple of days from you know,
I got an email or I got a message from
a parent yesterday, who's not able to get their teenager
in to see a mental health specialist. You know, I've

(02:24):
had people get in contact with me. They're not able
to get results at different times from scans and things
like that. So we know that our allied health professionals
cover a whole range of different areas. I mean, even
as you've said there speech speech pathologists for example, and
the incredible work that they do. I mean, we cannot
be in a situation in the Northern Territory where we're

(02:45):
not able to attract them here we all need these specialists.
So how are those pay rates comparing to other locations
around Australia.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Pretty poor. So you know South Australia did four percent.
Just recently New southwalest I think did four point five percent.
There's definitely been a recognition from governments across Australia that
the cost of living crisis has hit a lot of
people hard. These are really valuable positions and they need
to be recognized or they will leave. We have enough

(03:15):
trouble attracting people into the territory as it is. And
if you can jump across to Queensland and Wa which
are generally very well paying jurisdictions you can get a
twenty grand pay bump. People love living here, people love
the territory of public service. But there becomes a point
where that just it's just not sensible to continue working
for such low wages. And yeah, absolutely right that many

(03:37):
of these professions are really really important. One of the
things we've been talking about this week is the fact
that the territory has the highest rate and country of
lower lum amputations and you need P dietists to help
prevent that and manage it when it occurs. And you know,
at the moment, if we have a P dietary shortage,
it's going on around the world and we will be
spending thousands getting them shipped in from interstate. Aren't retaining

(04:00):
the ones that we are in now.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I understand that rallies happened obviously at Royal Darwin and
Alice Springs Hospitals yesterday. How did that go and why
did just sort of decide to go down that path?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Went really well? We had really good turnout, first time
that Allied health has ever sort of rallied like that
in memory. So we went down that path because our
health is often forgotten about and it isn't the center
point of discussion. We were really concerned that this EA
ballot would be a yes vote and that may be
locked in on these terrible deal. Thankfully, we got the

(04:34):
news yesday that the no vote was successful and the
rally was a last minute, the last attempt to get
the no vote up and out and really bring attention
to the plight of the Allied health professionals at the moment.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
So where to from here? I mean, I know some
people listening this morning will be going, look, it's a
pay rise over four years. They might argue that it's
ambitious given the budget pressures that the Northern Territory government
is facing. You know, we're too from here, and what
would you say to anybody that's sort of you know
that's thinking that right now.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
So we want to meet with the territory government, with
the Officer of the Commissioner for the Public Sector Employment
and sort out a deal. Members don't want to be
doing protracted industrial action. They want to get back to
doing their job. Look, you're not wrong with the budget pressures.
We understand that that is as not an endless pool
of cash that can be given, but there are many

(05:28):
mechanisms that they can use to address some of these
workforce shortages, and you know things like professional development costs.
These clinicians often have to keep up dozens of hours
of professional development courses and things like that which are
held into state, they have to fly in and out.
They currently cover probably about eighty percent of those costs

(05:49):
themselfs with very small reimbursement or contribution from their employer.
So one of the good ways to attract and retain
staff is to cover that cost. It's not an unreasonable expectation,
and then it would help take pressure off wage demands.
But at the end of the day, what do we
want the health system to be like in four years
and what are we willing to pay for it? Because

(06:09):
if we don't have an houred health workforce that is
going to remain in the territory, we're not going to
have health service that meets community expectations.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, Billy l Eric Health Services Union into Branch Secretary,
really appreciate your time this morning. Please keep us up
to date and let us know how things progress.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Thank you