Statement from Geoff Annals re Michael Bassett

27 April 2007

Statement from Geoff Annals, New Zealand Nurses Organisation CEO.
Regarding comments by Dr Michael Bassett in The Press - 24/04/2007.

In 1982, then National Government Minister of Health, Aussie Malcolm, rejected nurses' claims for fair pay saying if he paid nurses more he would have to deny "the public of needed beds or of renal dialysis or cardiac surgery."

Michael Bassett was Aussie Malcolm's immediate successor as Minister of Health from 1984 to 1987 in the Labour Government. In 1986, under threat of unprecedented strike action by the New Zealand Nurses Association, Michael Bassett acknowledged the justice of nurses' and midwives' claim for pay increases of more than 20%. This fair pay recognition averted a deepening critical nursing shortage that was denying the public of nurses to attend Aussie Malcolm's beds.

However the fair pay adjustment was short lived and the historical, gender based inequity that has always dogged nurses' and midwives' pay was quickly restored in coming years. Once again unfair pay rates led to crippling losses of nurses and midwives. Beds need nurses and nursing shortages resulted in chronic denial of numerous services including renal dialysis and cardiac surgery.

It was only after an intensive campaign by thousands of nurses and midwives of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation in 2004 and 2005 that some pay equity was restored for nurses and midwives employed by DHBs with a pay catch-up of around 20% that was paid out over a period of two years. Prime Minster Helen Clark acknowledged the justice of the large increase and the public welcomed a sensible settlement achieved without industrial action that was referred to by the employers and government representatives as a "pay jolt".

In contrast Michael Bassett tells us he now regrets the just settlement made under his authority, or perhaps he always did. Well I can reassure you Michael, that whether you came to regret a decision you thought was right at the time or always regretted your inability to do what you really wanted, fair pay, pay that is free of gender based distortion, will always be the right thing to do. It was right in 1986, it was right in 2005 and it is right in 2007.

All health workers should be paid due recompense for their skills, knowledge and responsibilities, regardless of gender. Too often, health workers, especially women health workers, are expected to subsidise health services by accepting unfair wages. For too long nurses took on the guilt dished out by politicians like Aussie Malcolm; 'if we are paid fairly our patients will suffer'. In 1986 enough nurses and midwives finally recognised the hypocrisy and gross unfairness of those who demanded nurses and their families should take on a financial responsibility that belongs to society as a whole to force an unwilling politician to allow a proper and fair pay adjustment.

They only achieved this by their determination to strike if necessary. This was not union extremism but a measured and determined response to long standing intransigence by politicians unwilling to recognise that nurses and midwives were worth considerably more that they were paid. It was a measured and determined response to the fact that politicians could not make the link between the deepening nurse and midwife shortage and their pay rates. The public recognises the duty and the need to pay nurses and midwives what they are due even if politicians sometimes do not.

Michael Bassett is right; there is a message for the government in all this. It is not, as he states, that large settlements won't help hospitals deliver better services, but that health services are delivered by health workers and careful attention must be paid to the legitimate needs of those workers, not only for fair pay but also for working conditions that enable them to practise to the standards required of them by the public whom they care for.

When governments focus on the cost of the health workforce in isolation from the value of the work done, health workers leave the workforce, health services fail and the public is denied 'beds'.

ENDS

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