We met with DHS and VHIA again today. We still have not received a response to our claims which include new classification structures for psychologists, dietitians, audiologists, pharmacists and medical scientists. Today’s meeting was spent answering questions re our proposals – we are told that it will be 2 weeks before we will receive a response. This would not be a problem – except that the government will not agree to an operative date for the first increase of 1 October 2007. This means, of course, that it is the government’s interest to delay, postpone, put off and prevaricate, as they are insisting that the operative date will be linked to the date that agreement is reached – not the date that the old agreement expires. This is really unfair and means that you, the members, carrying all the pain if the negotiations extend beyond October 2007, which is highly likely given the delays to date. Government ‘policy’ is a 3.25% increase per annum – which would leave Victorian health workers’ rates of pay well behind their counterparts in other States, and is far less than the increase the Victorian government agreed to for medicos last year (4.64% pa).