With their pay fight stalled, the WA’s nurses and midwifery union is considering taking the issue to the next election by starting its own political party and targeting upper house seats.
Australian Nursing Federation WA secretary Janet Reah said the idea was in its infancy, but was born out of frustration with the state government’s refusal to budge on its pay offer: either 3 per cent or $60 a week, whichever is larger, plus a $3000 cost of living payment.
Janet Reah leading the ANF WA Nurses and Midwives Rally Parliament House and Dumas House on November 25, 2022Credit: Hamish Hastie
“We decided to poll on this issue as I’ve had a great deal of conversation with our nurses and midwives statewide and had this idea put forward to me previously due to the frustration being felt and a lack of feeling listened to,” she said.
Reah said the ANF would only move forward with the plan if the bulk of its membership supported the idea, which was likely to occur given the positive response from 80 per cent of nurses in a similar poll held in 2018.
A straw poll of its members overnight netted a similar response, Reah revealed.
The union is seeking a 5 per cent pay rise across the board which has resulted in very public stoushes against the government and a messy battle in the Industrial Relations Commission over the union’s unlawful strike in November last year.
Reah said pay would be at the top of the agenda of the nurses’ party but she hoped to have the latest fight settled by the 2025 election.
“If the party is given the green light, it would target the many aspects of health,” she said.
“As we know, WA’s health system has been experiencing a rapid decline in recent years along with an increasingly secretive government with the transparency of frosted glass.
“The purpose would be around achieving better outcomes for WA’s health system, its workers, but also all West Australians who at one point in their lives have been through our rundown hospital system.”
Candidates would be selected from the union’s membership. It is understood that Reah herself will not run.
The ANF has about 40,000 members, giving any political party a significant support base with which to secure an upper house seat under the statewide voting ticket rules introduced by Labor after it won the 2021 election.
Reah said the union was confident through early projections that winning one seat would be likely with multiple also being a possibility.
“If our members give us their approval we will then gauge the interest of the general public which will give us a more exact projection,” she said.
The union would need to register their party before March next year in order to take part in the 2025 election.
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