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Speaker 1: Heather do the Senior Doctors Union has declined the invitation

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Speaker 1: to go to binding arbitration and will instead vote to strike.

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Speaker 1: The union has accused the Health Minister Simeon Brown, of

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Speaker 1: breaking the law by undermining their bargaining process and is

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Speaker 1: calling on the Prime Minister to step in. Sarah Dalton

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Speaker 1: is the executive director of the Association of Salary Medical

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Speaker 1: Specialists and with us HI Sarah Kelder, Heather.

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Speaker 2: Why have you said no, we don't want binding arbitration

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Speaker 2: where our members will sit in our executive don't want

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Speaker 2: to give away our members right to decide whether they

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Speaker 2: settle or not in the bargaining process.

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Speaker 1: Would binding an arbitration not be the best outcome because

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Speaker 1: you're can have somebody completely neutral sitting there looking at

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Speaker 1: what you want, looking at what the government is offering,

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Speaker 1: deciding which of the two is fairer, and then forcing

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Speaker 1: forcing Health New Zealand to stick to it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the Minister signaled in his request that he didn't

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Speaker 2: see the numbers on the table or the pot of

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Speaker 2: money as being any different. And if that is the

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Speaker 2: case of Health New Zealand and interested in bringing more

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Speaker 2: money to the table, we certainly don't want to throw

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Speaker 2: our lot into that sort of a situation. Were also

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Speaker 2: we don't know there was no signal in the letter

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Speaker 2: about who the arbitrator will be, what the terms of

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Speaker 2: reference would be, what the rules of engagement where if

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Speaker 2: you like so, And we also don't believe that bargaining

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Speaker 2: has broken down. Just the day before the letter arrived

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Speaker 2: from the Minister, I was on the phone with Dale

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Speaker 2: Bramley talking about next steps and bargaining and what we

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Speaker 2: both thought it might take to get it, to get

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Speaker 2: the job done. We have subsequently received a letter back

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Speaker 2: from the Minister this afternoon just suggesting that we go

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Speaker 2: back to bargaining where we never left, and we're very

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Speaker 2: happy to do that.

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Speaker 1: You realize how political this looks ay, I mean, here,

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Speaker 1: you've got this has been going on for a year,

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Speaker 1: You've got the opportunity to finally get a deal for

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Speaker 1: your members, but you choose to strike instead. Potentially, Plus,

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Speaker 1: in the media release in which you decline the arbitration,

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Speaker 1: you name check the Prime Minister in the first line.

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Speaker 1: Just looks political.

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Speaker 2: Well, it is political. This government is refusing to fund

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Speaker 2: our health system appropriately. They're refusing.

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Speaker 1: But what I mean, sir and so you guys look

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Speaker 1: like you're just taking a chance to make it difficult

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Speaker 1: for a right wing government.

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Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely not. We would love nothing more than to

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Speaker 2: settle this agreement. That is what our members want. We

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Speaker 2: have moved. So when we put in our claim last year,

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Speaker 2: we had a claim that was around about twelve percent.

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Speaker 2: Health New Zealand eventually responded with an offer that's worth

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Speaker 2: about one percent per year to our members. Our members

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Speaker 2: have told us that's unacceptable. In facilitator bargaining, we came

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Speaker 2: up with a revised claim that would see our members

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Speaker 2: getting between about four and a half and seven and

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Speaker 2: a half percent depending where they sat, but the bulk

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Speaker 2: of them it would be closer to four and a

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Speaker 2: half percent. And Health New Zealand has refused to look

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Speaker 2: at that. They're still sitting on one percent. We have moved.

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Speaker 2: We need Health New Zealand to move. If that's political,

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Speaker 2: that's what it is. But that's how bargaining works, right,

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Speaker 2: And yes, we are balloting our members for strike action

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Speaker 2: if we can get some movement, if we think there's

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Speaker 2: some progress, we will take that back to our members.

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Speaker 2: There will be no strike, I mean, so it's absolutely

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Speaker 2: the ballers and Health New Zealand Court, the governments who

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Speaker 2: are their funder Sarah.

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Sarah Dalton, Executive director of the Association

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Speaker 1: of Salaried Medical Specialists. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to News Talks d B from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio