MEDIA RELEASE
The NSW Parliament has today rejected the O’Farrell Government’s attempt to change the law and override a pay increase for public sector workers, said the Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) today.
The Opposition, Greens, Christian Democrats and the Shooters and Fishers Party combined to vote down the regulation the Government had introduced to discount their own 2.5% public sector wage cap by the 0.25% increase in the superannuation guarantee.
The Government introduced the regulation to change the law – and its own policy – when the Industrial Relations Commission ruled in favour of the PSA, stating that the 2.5% was not to be cut by the rise in super.
“The Government has said that it would appeal the Commission’s decision if the regulation was disallowed,” said PSA General Secretary Anne Gardiner.
“The PSA believes that instead the Government should now honour its own wages policy and immediately pay the full 2.5% increase to public sector workers.
“The Government lost in the Industrial Relations Commission and now it has lost in the Parliament.
“The Upper House has made it clear that it is no longer acceptable for the O’Farrell Government to override Court decisions whenever it doesn’t get its own way.
“The PSA calls on the Treasurer to stop threatening an additional 8,000 public sector jobs if superannuation is not absorbed into the wage increase.
“Such an assertion demonstrates a complete lack of appreciation of the impact the Government’s job cuts are already having on service delivery.
“The Government’s own budget figures indicate it can absorb the super increases and still have a surplus by the end of the forward estimates.”
“So paying superannuation increases in full will not put the State’s budget into the red.
“Cutting more jobs will however further impact on the delivery of services to the community and have a detrimental effect on the economy, particularly in regional areas,” she said.