HACSU's Tim Jacobson just left the media scrum following the meeting public sector unions had with the Premier today.

This meeting was expected to have resulted in an offer from the government on how they intended to deal with all of the public sector claims before it. Tim had high expectations prior to the meeting, after all, it wasn’t the unions who demanded a meeting, it was the Premier who approached us to meet with him.

The meeting did give us an opportunity to discuss directly with the Premier the problems we have with the current negotiations and the critical issues that need to be addressed. He heard our concerns. Sadly however, all we walked away from the meeting with was a commitment to meet sometime next week.

You know, we need to prepare for the possibility the government delivers us an offer that nowhere meets your expectations. A further week draws us closer to the 1 December deadline. 1 December is when most members are due their next increase.

Public sector unions are united in our intention to make sure you get an increase that delivers on the cost of living and will ensure that we can recruit and retain workers into the future. Today’s meeting was disappointing. We will expect more from government next week. Rest assured we will be out to discuss any offer from them as soon as we receive one.