Baillieu Government lawyers, who have already cost the
Victorian taxpayer more than one million dollars, have made an application to
Fair Work Australia for Stop Orders to prevent any industrial action by nurses,
midwives and mental health nurses until 22 August 2012.
ANF (Vic Branch) Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said: "The
Baillieu Government doesn't need expensive lawyers to stop tomorrow's
industrial action. Agreeing to allow a process that will enable Fair Work
Australia to resolve the issues will fix this dispute.
"Why is the Baillieu Government trying to drag on the
dispute for another six months?" she said.
"Clearly after 105 days the current conciliation process in
Fair Work Australia is not working. We need the Baillieu Government to agree to
a conciliation process that gives the independent umpire stronger powers to get
the parties to agree on a resolution," she said.
"Minister Shorten offered a conciliation process with
‘bite', which would have allowed an agreed independent tribunal member to compel
the parties to participate in negotiations, complete work, provide answers and
reach agreement.
"This is the process used to resolve the Victorian nurses'
enterprise agreements in 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2007. In 2007 the same
conciliation process took six days," Ms Fitzpatrick said.
‘We've had conciliation ‘lite', now we need conciliation
with ‘bite'," Ms Fitzpatrick said.
"Why are Mr Baillieu and Minister Davis so afraid of rolling
up their sleeves and working on a resolution to this dispute?" she said.
"If the Baillieu Government wanted to, there is still time
to fix this dispute this afternoon," she said.
ANF (Vic Branch) Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick and the ANF
negotiating team remain available 24 hours a day to negotiate a new agreement.
