Last Thursday I had the pleasure of addressing the annual conference of the Australian Nursing Federation. Nurses had asked me how the changed industrial relations environment after Work Choices will affect them if we win the election in November. This is what I told them:

These new laws provide the framework within which the Victorian Government will have to operate, regardless of which party is in power.

Under this legislation there is a capacity for individuals to negotiate individual contracts or Australian Workplace Agreements, however there is also a capacity for individuals through their union to negotiate collective agreements, which to date have been referred to as Enterprise Bargaining Agreements and are now to be called Collective Agreements.

While the manner in which agreements are negotiated may be different, nurses will still have the capacity to negotiate a collective agreement with the government and the minister of the day.

Delegates, let me be clear:

Under a Baillieu Government no nurse working in our public hospital system will be forced on to an AWA and, if elected, as Minister I look forward next March to starting negotiations with the Australian Nursing Federation for a new Collective Agreement.

I had also been asked to clarify what my attitude is to the conditions laid-out in the current EBA. I said:

Firstly, I commit to the protection of current nurse pay and conditions. In addition I offer my full support and protection for nurse/patient ratios, which in my view ensure the appropriate quality of patient care in our hospitals.

The Liberal Party made its position clear in April of 2004 when we clearly said that ratios should not be abolished without evidence that it will not compromise patient care and we cited evidence that concluded that any significant change in nurse/patient ratios would lead to patient safety being diminished in Victorian hospitals.

At the time this negotiation was taking place in 2004, the Bracks government wanted nurses to abandon ratios to allow for the introduction of a system which would allocate nurses to shifts on the basis of demand.

Clearly this was unacceptable. Rightly, nurses were not prepared to trade-away these recently-granted and hard-won conditions.

In relation to long service leave entitlements, I acknowledge that nurses along with school teachers and police enjoy more generous entitlements than the minimum prescribed standard. The long service awarded to these groups is 26 weeks leave after 15 years service.

This will be preserved.