Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Quin: Ambulance Association Secretary on the 6% funding boost for Hato Hone St John

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Mark Quin: Ambulance Association Secretary on the 6% funding boost for Hato Hone St John · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Saint John and it's ambulance workers have found a solution
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to their previous pay dispute. Saint John says there will
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: be no more industrial action that would disrupt road ambulance services.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It comes as the government announces a twenty one million
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: dollar funding boost for Saint John to go towards the operation.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The Ambulance Association secretary Mark Quinn is with us this morning. Mark,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning. This is obviously good news. I'm
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: struggling to find detail on this. What will this mean
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: for your average ambulance worker.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: All this means actually pay increases which is above the
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: inflationary pressures that have been going on, and including some
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: conditions which are around medical which is quite significant. So
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: it only takes us through to the end of June
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Right, So next year will we be back in the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: same situation with strikes again.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Possibly certainly not the first option that we look as
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a the union to go to. But it's indicative what
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the exits we took this year of the frustration and
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: actually the end how angry some of our members were
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: around where they found themselves when going to the bargaining
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: table with the employer. Saying they had nothing to offer us,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: which they did in February this year.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: They said it was the last final offer, best in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: final right, and here we are with, you know, with
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: more money they've found behind the back of the couch presumably,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: so problem not solved, problem just band aid over.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to a degree, I don't have a result that
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: this is a pay perity, you know. And this is
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: where since paramedics particularly were registered in twenty twenty, we've
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: seen that they have come a valuable commodity outside the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: judicial emblan series of Saint John and Warrington free and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that is partly driving you know, the recognition to be
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: sitting alongside doctors and nurses and other health professions where
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: there sitting because they are now valued in the community.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And that's having seeking positions or getting positions out in
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: emergency departments, primary health key organizations and in the other
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: community healthy agencies. So that's you know, Saint John's been
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: slowly recognized that they're actually a valued product outside the
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: traditional ambulance services.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: The one hundred percent funding obviously we're not there yet.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: The New Zealand First Party has had promised during the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: election campaign to get ninety five plus do you know
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: where this extra funding gets us to in terms of
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a percentage?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: No, it only twenty one million only adds so I
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: think is a total of three hundred and fifty seven million,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So it probably adds somewhere another ten percent of their
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: good will take. But certainly it is a band aid
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't nobody knows what one hundred percent funding
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: looks like, and certainly Saint John and now and this
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: year have taken a turn from promoting themselves as only
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: wanting two to eighty two percent funding to now wanting
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent. But there's a recognition partly of the
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: economic situation in New Zealand and the inability to meet
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: the inflation pressures that you know for any other business
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: or organization is currently experiencing.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Mark, thank you very much for your time. Best to
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like Mark when New Zealand Ambulance Association secretary.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks he'd be from five am weekdays,
• 3:42
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