Two-year battle with NSW Labor as wage overhaul secured
More than 60,000 nurses and midwives in NSW will receive pay rises of up to 26 per cent after an industrial tribunal ruled the predominantly female workforce was historically undervalued, ending a two-year battle with the state’s Labor government.
The NSW Industrial Relations Commission on Thursday announced its decision in a court dispute over the Minns government’s failure to agree a pay agreement with the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) in 2024.
Announcing the commission’s decision, Judge Ingmar Taylor said the historical undervaluation of female-dominated professions, the former government’s wage cap and high inflation following the Covid pandemic justified a “one-off reset” of their salaries.
The Commission decided to increase wages by 3 percent for 2026 and 2027.
The commission’s full panel decided that this reset should include first-year salary increases of 16 percent for registered nurses, 18 percent for registered nurses and 26 percent for nursing assistants.
The wage increase will take effect from July 1, 2025, one year later than the union’s target date.
Dozens of nurses flocked to the NSW industrial tribunal to hear the ruling, which included a 3 per cent temporary pay increase given last year to the state’s 69,000 nurses and midwives.
Health Minister Ryan Park said the government would support the industrial tribunal’s decision.
Thousands of nurses and midwives marched through Sydney’s CBD during three statewide strikes in 2024, bringing the public health system to a halt.
Many people were angered by the government’s approach to bargaining, especially after an agreement with the police union to raise the salaries of some officers by up to 40 percent over four years.
Nurses and midwives agreed to a temporary 3 per cent increase in September ahead of a six-week trial in which the union pressed for a 35 per cent pay increase over three years.
This included a 15 percent increase paid retroactively for fiscal 2024 and an additional 10 percent increases in fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
During opening presentations, both sides estimated the request would cost taxpayers more than $10 billion.
“Nurses are now expensive, they will become even more expensive, [but] this does not represent an economic disaster,” the union’s lawyer, Leo Saunders, told the court in September.
The union argued the increase was necessary to address cost-of-living pressures, compensate for the increasing roles and responsibilities of nurses and midwives, and correct the historical undervaluation of the predominantly female workforce.
Saunders told the court that nine in 10 nurses and 98.9 per cent of midwives are women.
In her submission to the court, NSW Deputy Treasurer Liz Livingstone said the union’s pay offer would cost $14.7 billion over the next five years, rising to $16.3 billion with interest.
Livingstone said that if the union met its demands, the government would not be able to achieve the return to the net surplus it had promised, which would negatively affect the province’s credit rating.
Economist Martin O’Brien, called by the union to give evidence, argued that the state’s economy was in a prime position for wage growth and that conditions did not warrant restraint.
Commission chairman Ingmar Taylor asked NSW Health to provide more detail about the likelihood of this happening after government lawyer Simon Meehan warned service cuts could be necessary to fund any increases beyond what has already been budgeted.
“We have to make sure we don’t make a decision that will lead to hospital closures,” Taylor said on the first day of the six-week hearing.
More to come.
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Angus Thomson is a health reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
