Will the nurses get a better deal?

Just last week, the Crown accounts showed that the tax take is up by $300m and the accounts are in even better shape than forecast when Grant Robertson delivered the Budget in May.

New Zealanders will have been struck by the grave sense of responsibility that nurses expressed as they went on strike yesterday, in their first national strike in almost 30 years. Nurses were not taking this lightly.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation chief executive Memo Musa explained that patient safety remained paramount throughout the 24-hour strike action, and that the decision made by those nurses who rejected the district health boards’ offer was not easy.

Nor have the nurses been driven by selfish motives. The strike action is about more than better pay deals. It is also about resourcing in an underfunded health sector, as one North Island nurse explained in a widely shared social media post. ‘‘We want a ratio of one nurse to four patients, instead of 1-6, or

1-8, or 1-14,’’ she wrote. ‘‘We want this so that we can provide the care that is needed to reduce rehospitalisation, to eliminate mistakes, to ensure that people aren’t lying in soiled beds or being discharged too early.’’

It is easy to see the nurses’ actions in a wider context. After nine years of a centre-Right government, nurses and teachers expected more from a centre-Left Government.

On one hand, that is a superficial reading. However, it does point to a larger picture of a lowwage economy in which well-regarded and hardworking professionals finally ask themselves, ‘‘If not now, when? Is this really as good as it gets?’’

On the face of it, the latest offer looks very reasonable. Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters calls it the largest pay increase for nurses in 14 years and he seems unwilling to budge. The offer includes three pay rises of 3 per cent across 18 months, a cash injection of $38 million to hire about 500 more nurses, a lump-sum payment of $2000 and a commitment to pay equity by December next year.

So is this the best the Government can do? Finance Minister Grant Robertson is wearing the same poker face as Peters when he says there is no more money but negotiations will continue.

This line stands in contrast to the Government’s recent announcements that the economy is doing better than predicted. Just last week, the Crown accounts showed the tax take is up by $300m and the accounts are in even better shape than forecast when Robertson delivered the Budget in May. At the time, Robertson described the good result as a side effect of his careful fiscal responsibility, saying that ‘‘the latest set of accounts show the coalition Government is sticking to our commitment to run the books responsibly by running sustainable surpluses and keeping expenses under control’’.

Of course those expenses include the public health sector and the wages of those who toil within it. The Government may find it is captive not just to the expectations of interest groups and sectors who have traditionally backed Labour through times of semi-austerity, but may also find that such outbreaks of economic good news will have many wondering if and when it is their turn.

As other commentators have pointed out, the same nurses, and their friends in the teaching profession, may also look at news of a proposed $2 billion spend-up in defence and wonder what it says about priorities.