00:00My name is Naomi Jones, I'm a member of the New South Wales Nurses and Midwife
00:04Association and I'm the branch secretary at the Wollongong Day Surgery. So we're
00:09here today taking short industrial action after spending six months
00:13bargaining with healthy care reps about our pay and ratios and we've come to a
00:17standstill. Be very mindful about what you're buying at the supermarket, be
00:21mindful of the lights you leave on, it's the same everywhere we've just got to
00:25limit our resources. Look I live alone but my family lives a fair way away so
00:30obviously for example the fuel crisis at the moment it stops me from visiting my
00:34family a fair bit. My grandmother's down the coast in palliative care so I'm
00:38really restricted in how many times I can go and see her as well. I'm here because
00:42I'm tired of healthy care, spending their money on new hospitals and saying they're
00:48too poor to increase our wages to a liveable wage that we deserve.
00:54Look I'm a single woman, I've got a mortgage that I'm trying to pay on my own
01:00and with every interest rate rise I'm having to cut down on where I'm spending
01:06my money, I'm having to budget tighter and tighter for my groceries, for
01:13helping out my mother and my family, my extended family and it's just it's getting
01:20tough. Oh I'm here today to represent every nurses not only for Shell Harbor and the
01:27Wulonggong Day surgery but all the nurses working hard for under healthy care to
01:32represent what we think we deserve better pay patient safety ratio and of course to
01:41really fight for what we deserve. Well actually it's really hard knowing I'm a
01:48nurse from overseas I have to cut back on some of my budgets here like food, groceries
01:55and also petrol if it has if it's just approximate distance I walk but mostly I
02:01cut back on some of my if I want to eat out I don't but mostly it affects my way
02:09of
02:09supporting my family back home because I only not work for myself but I also work
02:14to help my family back home so I have to really budget everything for me to be
02:19able to support them as well. So I work for a women's domestic violence and
02:24homelessness service in Wulonggong and the Shoal Haven SASE and we're taking
02:31action today because the value of our work is not being recognized sufficiently
02:37it's an incredibly highly skilled and complex area that we work in and that's
02:44not reflected in the support of the pay rates that we're awarded in our award.
02:50Well like anybody you know we're budgeting to be able to afford the rent to be
02:56able to afford the bills and often our workforce they're working parents so we
03:02have so many sort of competing demands because this is a highly feminized
03:07workforce there's a lot of women who work in this field and yeah we're just you
03:13know cutting costs wherever we can to make ends meet. Yeah I would say yes so just
03:19little extras like I'm eating out you know we cut those costs and little things
03:28like self-care is really important in the work that we do because we are
03:33frontline workers so things that might seem like you know luxuries they're
03:38they're things that kind of get us through the week and and it's really
03:42unfortunate when workers in these really stressful workforces have to you know
03:49make cuts to those things that we would like to afford yeah. So I work at an
03:55Aboriginal community-controlled organisation called Waminda so Waminda is
03:59one of many Aboriginal community-controlled organisations across
04:01Australia many of whom have taken action today. Well like everybody else it's
04:07making decisions and prioritising the things that the essentials and letting go
04:13some of the sort of extra things that one would like to enjoy but can't. Yeah I've had
04:19to make different decisions you know putting things off that I would have
04:22would like to do putting things off like you know recreational stuff things like
04:26that even sort of travel and getting to family you know far away I think that
04:33this is that sort of speaks to why we're here today because while everyone's
04:38feeling the pinch of cost of living people that are supporting our communities
04:43who are in these experiencing financial stress and experiencing social sort of
04:48isolation and stress need to be recognised for the important work they do the
04:51contributions they make across Australia every day and that's why we're here
04:56because we think that that work is not recognised enough contribution it makes to
05:01the social fabric of our country is critical.
