“TREASURY” MODELLING NOT LABOR’S POLICY
Daniel Mookhey, NSW Shadow Treasurer accuses premier of Running a Scare campaign
“Treasury” modelling purporting to show a funding “black hole” in the Opposition’s costings is not Labor’s policy on public sector wages.
Labor has never promised inflation-level pay rises and made clear that any increase in wages for our essential workers will be offset by productivity gains, budget offsets, and savings – and leave the budget no worse off.
Labor will remove the cap on our essential workers’ wages so we can work with them – our nurses, hospital workers, paramedics and teachers – to improve their working conditions, stop them quitting and attract more people to these vital roles.
NSW is the only State in Australia with a “wages cap” in place.
Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean are running a scare campaign to hide the fact that three quarters of healthcare workers and teachers are thinking about leaving NSW to go to another state where conditions are better.
We have a teacher shortage worse than ever in NSW history, and our emergency departments are in a crisis unlike any we have ever seen. Hiring targets for almost every single public sector occupation have been missed.
What is clear is that Mr Perrottet’s decision to freeze wages during the pandemic months before inflation exploded in Australia and around the world was devastating for police, health workers and teachers.
That is the legacy of 12 years of a Liberal National Government.
It’s also a bit rich of the Liberals to complain about removing the wages cap when their own “limit” has increased several times.
Under Dominic Perrottet and the Liberals’ NSW is in a cost of living crisis. Only Dominic Perrottet feels the right way to respond to this is through artificially holding down wages – and robbing NSW of associated productivity gains and improvements to our public sector.
We’re making the tough decisions necessary to pay for the investments NSW needs to make, especially in our essential workers who keep our state running.
Daniel Mookhey, NSW Shadow Treasurer said:
“Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean wants to keep wages low.”
“I’d rather partner with our essential workers to reform our vital public services than agree to another massive pay rise for iCare executives.”
“All we’re proposing to do is to sit down with our essential workers and talk about how we deliver better public services by generating productivity gains. We would then look to reinvest some of those savings to make sure they stay. It’s no different to what the law requires employers like Coles and Woolworths to do.
“The budget is better of when the government collaborates with its workforce about reform, instead of refusing to even listen to their suggestions.”
DATE: MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2023
