Parking fee limits for nurses

The State Government has been blocked from introducing more fee increases for staff parking at its big hospitals after the WA Industrial Relations Commission ordered it to limit future increases to cost of living rises.

The order was made in the final signing off of an industrial agreement with the Australian Nursing Federation covering public sector nurses, midwives and mental health nurses. It comes 18 months after nurses secured a 14 per cent pay rise over three years amid heated industrial action during last year's State election campaign.

The Government has come under fire in the past two years for big parking fee increases at public hospitals and last week raised fees at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital.

Three months ago, the commission ordered the Government to review staff parking fees at hospitals such as Royal Perth and Sir Charles Gairdner to "a more reasonable fee structure" and warned that if the ANF and the Government could not reach agreement it would consider making parking costs a part of the industrial agreement.

Now the commission has ruled that parking charges for nurses at major hospitals be set at $5.50 a day and any future rises be limited to consumer price index adjustments.

Nurses also won other benefits, including higher duty allowances for each shift and overtime rates for casual on-call nurses called back in.