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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 859 ..

MR MOORE: If you want to know what the bedside nurses think, what is wrong with a democratic approach? Absolutely nothing I can see. What is the union so frightened of that they will not allow this vote to go to members?

Mr Stanhope: They are not stopping any vote.

MR MOORE: "They are not stopping anybody," says Mr Stanhope, but he is wrong. It is very interesting what has now appeared at the hospital. I have a copy of what has appeared at the hospital in the stairwells and so forth. It says:

Why can they not walk around and ask to have it signed? They have to put it in the shift coordinator's office. One cannot help wondering about the level of intimidation, against a democratic system.

MR STANHOPE: I ask a supplementary question. The minister has just indicated in his answer-I think this is what he indicated, and I wonder whether he might confirm it for the Assembly-his version of the offer that was made to Calvary. The minister has indicated that it was management that put an offer to the nurses at Calvary. Can the minister confirm that it was in fact the ANF that put the management offer to the nurses at Calvary Hospital and that it was the ANF that facilitated the vote that led to nurses at Calvary accepting the offer that was made there? Can the minister tell us when he will enter into constructive negotiations with the nurses?

MR MOORE: The course of events was that I phoned the head of the Nursing Federation on a morning in December, and I said, "We are going to make a further announcement about our strengthening the work force package." By the way, I did not mention this in the early part of the thing, just so much of the package. I said, "As you know, we have already provided extra education and educational opportunities for our nurses with the support that is tied in with that. I am going to make a further announcement about that, and so that you understand what it is I will be very comfortable if you would like to come to my office."

My recollection is that I was making that announcement at 11 o'clock; it might have been 11.30. I said, "Would you like to come into my office an hour before I make that announcement so I can take you through exactly what the offer we are putting is?"

I explained very carefully, "We are putting money up to the Canberra Hospital management, to the Calvary Hospital management and to Community Care management for them to then negotiate. But from the government's point of view we are in the middle of an enterprise bargaining agreement. We are intervening in that, and we are going to put up $20 million over the period of the agreement, approximately. The effect of it is something in the order of 12 per cent, but it is up to management to negotiate. But what we are putting up is non-negotiable. It does have time limits. We are doing it because we think this is the most effective way to do it. But if the management at the Calvary

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