Brisbane picket hits state budget

Brisbane picket hits state budget

By Bill Mason

@box text intro = BRISBANE — Colourful banners and placards from a variety of unions and community groups were displayed outside the Queensland parliament here on May 29 in a speak-out and picket against the state budget, brought down by Liberal treasurer Joan Sheldon two days before.

Gaye Hawksworth, secretary of the Queensland Nurses Union, warned of funding cuts in the health sector increasing the workloads of the state's nurses.

Other speakers condemned the Coalition government's budget as one that does nothing for the jobless, projecting an unemployment level of more than 9% for the end of the 1997-98 budget year.

Other union representatives slammed the cuts in child-care and attacked the links between the federal and state governments in slashing funding to public housing and denying union rights.

Speakers also opposed the cuts in TAFE funding and the government's refusal to negotiate a central agency bargaining agreement for all TAFE staff.

From GLW issue 277