The Australian Nursing Federation has agreed to call off industrial action while nurses consider the state government’s new pay offer following talks in the WA Industrial Commission on Tuesday.

The offer will set back government coffers an extra $31.5 million on top of its $3 billion total public sector pay offer.

Mark Olson, Australian Nursing Federation told Oliver Peterson on Perth Live that the government gave an offer last night, where 50% of members voted towards accepting it.

“We managed to get an increase on our ratios, so we are happy and satisfied that by January we can start doing something about these excessive and oppressive and impossible work loads for our members,” he told Oly.

The ANF told the government that an increase of allowance to $12,000 also needed to be added and made available to other groups of nurses to cover 60-70% of the members. In response, the government accepted but only if the strikes were called off.

“All I am doing is making sure the our members have options and to get that additional money for our members, we had to agree to suspend the industrial action – and a lot of members are not happy about that.”

Press PLAY to hear more on the accepted offer