Today in Parliament, Abigail moved and debated a motion calling on the Labor government to return to the bargaining table and negotiate with public sector workers on pay and conditions.

Abigail said:

I move:

(1) That this House notes that:

• the Minns Labor Government has made a series of unforced errors when it comes to negotiations of wages and conditions with key public sector workers;
• it is unconscionable for the Government to claim that there is insufficient revenue available to pay workers a fair wage while neither cutting wasteful spending to the corporate sector nor raising further revenue from big business and the very wealthy;
• a government that cannot afford to pay its workers a fair wage is not managing its finances in an equitable and efficient manner; and
• pitting groups of workers against one another, backgrounding hostile media against the working people in this State, taking legal action against unions and expecting workers to find productivity gains or other savings in sectors which have been starved of funding by this and previous governments is a shameful betrayal of Labor's historical foundations.

(2) That this House further notes and expresses its concern at the apparent approach by the Government in conducting its approach to bargaining, including:

• spending millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars on private law firms to conduct bargaining; and
• its failure of planning, operational competence and accountability from those in charge by failing to take reasonable and necessary steps, in the lead-up to legally notified and permitted protected industrial action, to prevent entirely avoidable issues that would affect critical public systems and the public.

(3) That this House calls on the Government to return to good-faith bargaining, to negotiate with all workers in a fair and respectful manner and to resolve all industrial disputes rapidly for the sake of workers and the community.

The New South Wales Government has got it wrong, catastrophically wrong, when it comes to its approach to dealing with the working people of this State, and particularly its approach to bargaining with the public sector workers of this State, for whom it has responsibility. The mask has slipped, and the public is coming to realise the shallowness and mean-spiritedness of its agenda. Labor campaigned on a promise to abolish the regressive and arbitrary wage cap and end the acrimony between a starved public workforce and a well-fed, miserly government and its ranks upon ranks of senior executives. That promise has proven to be, if not an outright lie, a carefully worded and narrowly defined exercise in rhetoric over action.

What use is a promise to scrap a formal wages cap when it would simply become replaced with a de facto limit on pay increases, just barely but technically above that of the notoriously anti-worker Liberal-Nationals Government? What use is that to workers who are getting hammered by an explosion in the cost of everyday essentials when their financial and emotional reserves are already entirely depleted by over a decade of wage suppression? What use is that to a nurse, midwife or a psychiatrist who is committed to public service and care but who is exhausted and underpaid, and who is seeing their friends and colleagues forced out of the job they love, and when the public service motivates them into the private system or out of the health workforce entirely? What use is that to the transport workers who were relentlessly attacked by the former Government and are now being attacked by this Government?

Without their work and dedication, our State and economy would grind entirely to a halt. The New South Wales Labor Party has been waging a campaign of lawfare against public sector workers in this State ever since taking the reins of government. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on private lawyers like Kingston Reid and others to lead its bargaining negotiations, rather than taking ownership of the messes of its own creation. It has taken public health workers to court and pursued determinations in the Industrial Court that would see their legitimate industrial actions squashed. It has demanded that the Rail, Tram and Bus Union drop its wage theft case, while continuing to pursue section 471 notices against workers, docking their pay in a time of acute financial pain as punishment for taking legally protected industrial action.

Time and again, the Minns Labor Government has preferred to seek to use the courts to squash legally protected industrial action than to sit down at the bargaining table with workers and their representatives and deliver a deal that works for everyone. In fact, the Government seems to have done everything in its power to induce a more disruptive and acrimonious situation throughout the bargaining process by failing to plan for and adequately manage entirely predictable impacts of properly notified and well-publicised industrial action. Rather than taking responsibility, the Minns Labor Government and transport bureaucrats have deliberately misled the public in an attempt to inflict reputational damage on rail workers and union members, using the public and working people as pawns in their petty power games. The people of New South Wales are sick and tired of the small-minded approach of this Government. It was supposed to know better.

The New South Wales public sector is the nation's largest employer. The wages and conditions of this sector have a direct and indirect impact on the wellbeing of our entire State. The Government talks about wanting to relieve the financial pressure on the public while hammering workers and depressing their wages, inflicting pain on households across the State. We are in the midst of not just a cost-of-living crisis but also a crisis of inequality. The ranks of Australian billionaires and rent-seekers have swollen yet again in just the last year, while working people have to work out how to make do with less every day.

It is not good enough for the New South Wales Labor Government to continue crying poor, claiming not to have enough in the budget to pay the people keeping our hospitals and trains running. It is time to seize the obvious and available revenue-raising opportunities the Government has left untouched, by cutting corporate handouts and levying taxes and levies on big businesses and the mega-wealthy so that we can ensure that all public sector workers are paid fair wages. Most of these revenue-raising measures would simply bring New South Wales into line with other States, while some, such as the supplementary banking levy, would take ideas already well socialised within Labor parties in other States and Territories and make New South Wales a leader when it comes to creating a fairer revenue base. The fact is that the New South Wales Government can afford to pay all of its workers fairly and ensure the long-term health of our vital public services.

The Government could afford it if it just took action to end the handouts to big business and asked those businesses to pay their fair share to the State's revenue. It is not too late for the Government to learn the errors of its ways and begin delivering for the people it was elected to represent and support. I am glad to see, hopefully, a new approach to bargaining with the rail unions, which was announced yesterday afternoon. But let us hope it is not just more spin and rhetoric and that a deal can finally be achieved. The Greens are willing to work with Labor to rebalance the budget and get our State back on track. There are no excuses for not paying everyone who works for our State a fair wage.

The Opposition supported Abigail's motion, however Labor did not and countered with amendments.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: In reply: I thank all members who contributed to the debate, particularly Opposition members, who, unbidden by me, have decided to agree to the motion on the basis of the good words on the paper. Labor's defence, as I hear it, is that the Government is barely, technically better than the last lot and we should be happy with that. Labor was elected to stand up for workers, but it has not. That is the point. We have a chauffeur-class Labor Party that is so divorced from the needs of the working people who keep us safe, healthy and connected. To see Government members gut the motion and try to turn it into something self‑congratulatory is disgusting. It is a slap in the face to those who are striking.

Is it political? Yes, it is. But it is not a political attack on the Labor Party. The material circumstances of the people that we have been elected to represent is one of the most important political issues of the day. We will speak about it. Government members might not like it when we call them out on it, but it is not a political attack. I am not interested in the petty pointscoring that the major parties are obsessed with. The Greens are interested in standing up for what we say we stand for, going into Parliament every day and fighting for the things we say we will. We stand for workers' rights. We stand for relieving the cost-of-living pressures on the people of this State. We stand for looking after the people of this State, who are really angry. It is my responsibility to bring that angry voice into Parliament and tell the Labor Government that it is not doing what we need it to.

If Government members are not convinced by what I am saying, there were Electrical Trades Union members who work for Sydney Trains on strike outside of Parliament earlier today for the first time in 25 years. They did not strike under the former Coalition Government. They are striking now against the Labor Government. If that does not make Government members double-check themselves and think that maybe they are not doing this right, I do not know what will. Labor has lost its way. The Greens will not be threatened into silence by the constant bleating by Labor members that by complaining about Labor and holding it accountable, somehow it is more likely that the Coalition gets into government. That is not our concern right now. Our concern is looking at the decisions of the government of the day and holding it accountable.

At the end of the day, budgets are about choices. Government members have determined the constraints for themselves. Right now, they have chosen big business and the super wealthy over the workers of this State. That is on them and nobody else. The Greens do not support the Government's amendment. I have sympathy for what the Hon. Mark Latham is trying to do in holding the Labor Party to something it said, but The Greens do not believe it needs to be made up with productivity gains, so we do not support his amendment.

Ultimately, the motion was defeated.

Read the full transcripts in Hansard here and here.

12 February 2025