VICTORIA’S paramedics’ union will be given a revised pay offer in a bid to solve the long-running dispute.
UNDER the revised offer, Ambulance Victoria will no longer press for the union to agree to a rural relieving proposal governing how paramedics fill shift vacancies in rural areas.
It would also continue with a subsidy of time spent away from work for union officials and delegates. Health Minister David Davis said the revised offer came after the union outlined for the first time the precise terms it was prepared to accept. He said he hoped it would break the stalemate. “It would be a matter for the union as to what happens,” he told reporters on Wednesday. Under the government offer paramedics would receive a $3000 sign-on bonus and pay rises of six, three and three per cent over the next three years. But that offer alone has failed to persuade the Ambulance Employees Association, whose members have taken to painting anti-Napthine government slogans on ambulances.