The Queensland government has sought to downplay the significance of the doctor contract meeting #qldpol #keepourdoctors #smoqld
The Queensland government has sought to downplay the significance of the doctor contract meeting at the Pineapple Hotel overnight by questioning the number of “union activists” who attended.
More than 900 people filled the Kangaroo Point hotel on Wednesday night to discuss the next step in fighting the doctor contracts, which the government has mandated be signed by April 30.
At the meeting, attendees passed a motion of no confidence in Health Minister Lawrence Springborg, but they also convinced colleagues to stay and see the matter through, rather than resign en masse.
Speaking on the issue in Parliament on Thursday, acting Premier Jeff Seeney said the Opposition needed to be “cautious about misleading the house” about “whether all of those people were actually doctors”.
“I think there were quite a number of union activists involved,” he said.
“The leader of the opposition might like to correct the record perhaps about the number of doctors who were involved.”
A number of specialists who were at the meeting said union representatives were present, but the “vast” number of attendees were doctors.
Mr Springborg, who is due to hold a meeting – “not a negotiation” – with doctors’ representatives and his assistant minister Chris Davis on Thursday night, said it was “not unusual” for someone in his position “to be subjected to the circumstances that we saw last night at the Pineapple Hotel”.
He reiterated that formal negotiations were over and said it was time those against the contracts began listening.
“What we have always said is we are happy to sit down and have discussions with regards to real issues, real issues, but when you are actually dealing with these things, listening is a two way thing,” he said.
“Listening is not just about the government listening and responding, listening is also about those people who are actually making statements which are erroneous for them actually to take that information and relay it honestly and appropriately back to their particular colleagues, as we have done over and over and over and over.”
The government, keen to make clear that it was not a “doctors versus government” issue, released a report from the head of the visiting medical officer committee chair, Ross Cartmill, endorsing the negotiated outcome.
In the report, Dr Cartmill – a former vice-president of the Liberal Party – expressed his “disappointment” that “unions representing our salaried colleagues have expressed negativity regarding the change to contracts for salaried staff”.
“My disappointment centres on criticism leveled at VMOs and my leadership simply because I have maintained my determination to professionally negotiate our new terms and conditions,” he wrote.
Those against the contracts, which are due to be sent out to the majority of the state’s senior doctors in the next couple of weeks, have vowed to continue to fight the government over conditions.
Source: The Age