Stop the ads

I WRITE to you out of sheer frustration.
I am a local paramedic and as a majority of the public would be aware, we are currently in the process of an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) with the Victorian Government. The negotiations are in relation to both our pay and conditions.
I will not go in to all the finer details, however, the government has the power and ability to inform us of any updates to our EBA via email. Each paramedic is issued with their own personal “Ambulance Victoria” email address, which is known to management of Ambulance Victoria and I’m sure could easily be passed on to the Victorian Government. An email costs NOTHING to send and arrives instantly! These said people also have our postal address and could subsequently post a letter to us. A letter costs 60 cents to post, plus the paper and envelope – maybe $1 total and arrives in a few days!
I am also a Victorian Taxpayer…. It is for this very reason I am aghast to see the Victorian Government has repeated a full page letter in The Pakenham Gazette today (8 January, Page 17). The letter is from the Health Minister, Mr David Davis, and is advising paramedics what the current EBA offer is. What concerns me is:
* The letter is to paramedics, not the public, so why didn’t they just email it to us?
* How much is a full-page advertisement? That has appeared in more than 30 papers throughout Victoria, including the Herald Sun AND The Age – not once but TWICE! As taxpayers, we are paying for this which I am sure now totals more than $150,000!
* If we don’t read the paper then the letter has not even reached its “target” audience!
* The money spent on these advertisments could go a long way to providing another ambulance around our area!
* The letter makes paramedics out to be ungrateful, greedy people. Our South Australian colleagues are paid more than $25,000 per year more than us – all we ask for is pay parity with other states.
* We do not have a budget funded by Victorian taxpayers to pay for these type of ads so we don’t even have a chance to have a right of reply.
Ironically this offer was rejected by both paramedics and the union prior to the first advertisement being printed, so I really don’t know why they even bothered – s’pose it wasn’t their money!
If, for some reason, you are approached by the Health Minister to print this (or a similar) full page advertisement again, I ask you to reject their request and suggest they spend their money elsewhere and maybe fix the “hospital/ambulance/health” crisis they have created in Victoria.
Joanne Algie,
Ambulance Paramedic.