Can Queensland workers count on the LNP’s respect? This year they’ll find out

Earlier this month, Premier David Crisafulli stood on stage before a room full of Queensland teachers.

He was addressing their union’s biennial conference, hearing stories about the difficulties faced in the job. One question from the floor asked if he could be counted on to respect them.

“I’m here,” he is said to have responded.

David Crisafulli and his deputy, Jarrod Bleijie, the morning after October’s state election.Credit: Cameron Atfield

The question of respect is one that many in the public service are asking of the first-year government, as the LNP tries to shake-off the ghosts of the past and make good on its pre-election promises.

But with only a slim workplace platform beyond “nation-leading” pay for some, no job cuts for any, attacks on the CFMEU, and increased productivity, eyes are also open for clues of what else may come.

The Crisafulli government has risen to power with a swathe of workplace agreements to ink with nurses, teachers, police and beyond. The swift rejection of some early offers suggest a bumpy ride.

Initial pay offers put to workers – 3 per cent this year followed by 2.5 per cent annually across the two to follow – were rejected even before the June budget, which was built on their acceptance.

Without movement at the bargaining table, nurses began protected action to squeeze concessions. They are now in mediation with government in the industrial relations commission.

The state’s nearly 50,000 teachers are weighing up whether to launch their own industrial action, with a ballot to close in little more than a week.

“That’s enough time for the government to read the room and make sensible decisions,” Queensland Teachers’ Union president Cresta Richardson said this week.

“Teachers are growing tired of empty promises, platitudes and disrespect.”

For their part, Crisafulli and his responsible ministers have been at pains to show diplomacy.

Unless you’re in the CFMEU.

Another not-so-subtle clue about the government’s industrial direction emerged last week, with the flagging of a powerful commission of inquiry into the construction union.

This had been sparked by an administrator-commissioned report into its use of violence, said to only have scratched the surface.

While its figurehead, timeframe and scope are yet to be revealed, Crisafulli said on Sunday he hoped it would be the end of the union’s current business model.

But, after the fights the former Newman LNP government faced with unions, he insisted the bulk of the union movement were “people who want exactly what I want in the modern Queensland”.

“That is good pay for workers [and] productivity – that balance that has to be found,” Crisafulli said.

For the Industrial Relations Minister (and Deputy Premier) Jarrod Bleijie, the inquiry is not being viewed as a chance to deregister the union, which would leave it unregulated by government.

What’s been described as a personal project of Bleijie’s would instead seek to rein in the union’s “militant” influence. He has accused former Labor ministers of enabling the union and enacting favourable laws, which the LNP was now combing over with an eye to change.

There are other quiet signs of activity from a man with a long and public sparring history with unions, too.

An April note from the offshoot Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, one of a series of unregistered groups under the LNP-linked Red Union banner, said its log of claims had been sent to the health department and minister “at the invitation of the Deputy Premier”.

Bleijie’s office, while declining to comment about the interaction on the record and referring questions to the department, disputed involvement. Comment was also sought from NPAQ.

This is not the first time Bleijie has weighed in on the question of broadening the range of unions open to Queensland workers to join.

Two years ago, as the then-Labor government pushed back on Red Union group efforts to represent workers, Bleijie floated a question about allowing a registered NPAQ to compete against the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union.

(At the time, Queensland Council of Unions’ Jacqueline King said Bleijie was free to recommend a return to the “heydays” of strikes and demarcation disputes despised by employers.)

The topic was also broached in a veiled response to a parliamentary question on notice just this month.

Opposition leader Steven Miles had asked Bleijie if his government had plans to change the union encouragement policy, which lays out a proactive approach to allowing workers to organise.

“The Crisafulli government respects the fundamental protection of freedom of association and believes in choice for workers,” Bleijie said.

“Workers should have the right to elect their representation in the workplace, including their choice of union.”

“If the union encouragement policy requires updating, it will be to serve the best interests of Queensland public servants and the Queensland community.”

Pushed for a more detailed response from this masthead, a spokesperson for Bleijie said only: “It’s up to workers to choose who they want to represent them, not the government.”

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