AMANT President, Dr Peter Beaumont, said today that the Territory’s hospital
doctors have overwhelmingly rejected the NT Government’s paltry pay offer under
the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA).

AMANT has been advised by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment
(OCPE) that close to two-thirds of doctors rejected the offer in an informal ballot
conducted on Wednesday.

The EBA offer was between 20-30 per cent below the base level of what specialists
can earn in other States.

Dr Beaumont said the Government has effectively condemned the Territory health
system to failure.

“We are already losing cancer specialists, Indigenous health experts, physicians and
surgeons to other parts of Australia,” Dr Beaumont said.

“This latest insult from the Government will just accelerate the process.

“It has been two years since any doctor in the Territory got a pay rise, and the
Government’s response is to offer salaried specialists an income that is a third less
than their interstate counterparts for doing the same work.

“It’s just not good enough.

“We will lose doctors who will be impossible to replace – highly trained specialists
and doctors who do the hard slog in remote parts of the Territory. “They have given their all to help their patients and now the Territory is giving them
nothing.

“It’s a disgrace.

“The people of the Northern Territory will not thank the Chief Minister and her
Government for destroying the Territory health system,” Dr Beaumont said.