I'm really excited to announce the The Public Good campaign, which is about highlighting the prominent and positive role that the public sector workforce plays in the lives of Western Australians.

This campaign builds on the success of the Save Our Services campaign, which fought the Barnett Liberal National Government’s cuts to public services and successfully fought against privatisation. We believed that to secure better policies there needed to be a change of government at the last state election.

Government has changed and times have changed.

Our public sector ensures that people most in need can access health care, schools, public roads and transport and other services. The state is also powered by many public sector workers who keep our community safe, plan for the future of our state and support those working on the front line.

The public sector serves us all, including the vulnerable in society.

It’s often when emergencies occur that we realise how much we rely on public services. In a catastrophic fire or extreme weather events we rely on fire fighters and emergency services. The current pandemic has highlighted the importance of our health, hospital and other services.

Our public sector workforce is dynamic, flexible and responsive to ever changing circumstances in WA. They sometimes receive thanks from the government, but they deserve more than that for their contribution.

Public sector workers deserve a fair go.

They want to be able to do their best for the people of WA, without funding cuts, redundancies and ongoing restructures.

Like all Western Australians, they need to paid fairly so that their pay keeps up with the cost of living.

We believe privatisation undermines the quality of our public services. Privatisation leads to the loss of public sector jobs, rising costs of services, maintenance and safety concerns and a loss of future income and the capacity of our public sector.

We will always take a stand against Governments who have a privatisation agenda.

The Public Good is a union and community campaign led by UnionsWA and public sector unions. Our supporters come from across the WA community.

We encourage the current state Government to value our public sector workers and to invest in our public sector for the benefit of the whole community.

Owen Whittle

Secretary

UnionsWA

Spokesperson, The Public Good