Page 2876 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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The first issue that I want to canvass is that of the current wage negotiations that obviously arise from the budget. These are of some concern to our community and certainly of concern to our public service.
The government has offered a two per cent pay increase over four years; that was the original offer. Since then we have seen some pretty acrimonious negotiations ongoing. I quote Vince McDevitt, from the Chief Minister’s old union, the CPSU, who said that public servants had been “shafted” and accused the government of delaying the start of negotiations to ensure the “inferior offer” was drowned out by the budget. That is a quote from a union boss from a union that is affiliated with the Labor Party. So that is what the unions think of the way that this government operates. That is what the government—
Ms Gallagher: I pay good money to that union.
MR HANSON: The Chief Minister might want her money back. She is interjecting to say that she pays good money to the union. She is probably thinking she is not getting value for money. I suggest that there are probably many other members of the union that might be thinking that as well. If you recall, in the lead-up to the last election, Mr Assistant Speaker, it was the CPSU, to which the Chief Minister pays her dues, that was out there, funnily enough, supporting the Chief Minister in the lead-up to the last election, with a well-funded television advertising campaign saying, “Watch out. Watch out for the Liberals. If they get in they’ll cut jobs. Those nasty Liberals, you can’t trust them”—or words to that effect.
Of course, the great irony is that, with the Chief Minister paying her union dues and all the other members of the union paying their dues, they were being whipped into a state of fear and loathing by the union in that case, in the lead-up to the election. Unfortunately, as I have said in this place before, the union were right in part, in that they were going to be shafted. As Vince McDevitt said, ACT public servants had been shafted. The problem is that it was not the Liberals doing the shafting; it was the Labor Party. So they probably thought that, given the Chief Minister had paid her dues, she would not then turn around as her first act and shaft them. On 7 August this was stated:
The CPSU said the revised offer granted a 6 per cent pay rise this year to the lowest-paid workers in the ACT public service …
The offer is reduced for every $20,000 extra an employee earns, with workers earning more than $77,000 getting 2 per cent … and six instalments of 1.5 per cent over the four year agreement.
I am not sure if that is where it is currently at. The Chief Minister then said, on 6 or 7 August 2013 on ABC:
It will at some point come to a decision about money versus jobs.
At the moment we’re just managing to keep that balance right. The public service has remained the same size and we can afford the pay increases. But if it gets too much further down the track we’re going to have to look at our job numbers.
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