Member for Mulgrave Curtis Pitt says the Newman Government has used its massive majority to ram through WorkChoices-style changes to employment laws wiping away job security for every Far North Queensland state government employee.
“The changes pushed through Parliament last night mean no Far North Queensland state government worker’s job is safe,” Mr Pitt said.
“Local LNP MPs needs to explain their role in reviving these WorkChoices style changes.
“I urge all concerned government workers to contact their local LNP MP to express their disgust at these amendments.
“It opens the way for Far North Queensland school cleaners, hospital cleaners and ward staff to be outsourced.
“It allows for the outsourcing of other frontline jobs such as nurses and ambulance paramedics.
“Government worker anywhere across the public sector in Far North Queensland can now have their wages cut, and their conditions removed with the stroke of a pen.
“The amendments rammed through Parliament last night, with no consultation, expanded the ability of the government to outsource and contract out government workers across the entire public sector,” he said.
Mr Pitt said Tony Abbott said WorkChoices was ‘dead, buried and cremated’ but in Queensland the LNP has resurrected it by using its huge majority to change the state’s industrial laws and give itself more power to sack more people.
“Bit by bit, this LNP government is shaping its own WorkChoices through a succession of changes to guidelines, directives and legislation covering public sector employees,” Mr Pitt said.
“In true WorkChoices style, they also remove the need for decision makers to notify employees when they have decided to cut their jobs until they’re cutting them.
“Appallingly, the LNP government used its huge majority to push through the amendments to sideline the Supreme Court and make its hearing of a challenge to changes to industrial laws irrelevant.
“Instead of waiting on the outcome of a legitimate legal challenge in the Supreme Court to one of its WorkChoice-style directives on public sector employment, the government uses its numbers to sideline our justice system.
“The amendments are a broken promise on top of a broken promise.
“In the lead-up to the election this year the LNP and the Premier said government workers had nothing to fear from him or an LNP government. But once elected they started a program of mass sackings.
“They said they would not interfere with the independent industrial umpire. But once elected, they did just that.
“These changes represent yet another broken promise on top of that one,” he said.
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