Archived Media Releases: 16 March 2007

ANF rejects Hockey’s attack on nursing unions

The Australian Nursing Federation today rejected federal Employment Minister Joe Hockey’s comments that unions are wasting members’ money by campaigning against his government’s industrial relations laws.

ANF Federal Secretary Jill Iliffe said the ANF at both state and national levels will continue to campaign against the government’s industrial relations laws because they undermine nurses’ rights at work and jeopardise patient safety.

‘The ANF strongly opposes the Howard Government’s WorkChoices legislation. Basic conditions that are necessary for a safe working environment and which allow nurses to provide safe care, such as minimum staffing levels, reasonable workloads, limits on overtime, and minimum breaks between shifts, are all being eroded by these laws.

‘Patient safety and quality of care depends on having staff with the right skills to provide that care. The failure to provide a decent workplace environment for nurses  compromises patient care and makes it harder to recruit people to nursing and retain the nurses we have,’ Ms Iliffe said.

‘WorkChoices is bad for nurses and bad for our health care system. The latest statistics on overtime show that 6% of nurses work more than 50 hours a week and evidence suggests this is increasing in all states,’ Ms Iliffe said.

Figures from the NT suggest that 25% of nurses work overtime in the form of double shifts.

‘There is a direct correlation between appropriate staffing levels, skill mix and the quality of patient care - how safe is it for a patient to be cared for by a nurse who has already done excessive overtime and is returning to do more?

‘Nurses intend to vigorously campaign against these laws in the lead up to the federal election because the laws are a threat to the delivery of high quality nursing care in a safe working environment for nurses,’ Ms Iliffe said.

Media Contacts
Jill Iliffe, Federal Secretary 0419 576 590
Ged Kearney, Assistant Federal Secretary, 0417 053 322

The ANF, representing 150,000 members, is the professional and industrial voice for nurses and midwives in Australia