The Hon. Beverley McArthur, Member for Western Victoria, Media Release, 9 September 2024
The Victorian Public Service Enterprise Agreement includes $300m one-off cost-of-living payments for public servants while Victorian families and businesses struggle with increased taxes and no sign of relief from cost-of-living pressures.
On the new wages deal, Member for Western Victoria Bev McArthur remarked in Parliament that “few pieces of paper, even in Labor’s Victoria, will end up costing us more”.
“It says a lot about the Government which signed it. Specifically, it reveals their political weakness, their factional debts, their economic recklessness, and their ideological obsessions.
“This agreement will make it worse, with four guaranteed 3 per cent pay rises, the first even backdated to May – just five months after the last salary increase in the 2020 agreement!”
The most recent budget warned net debt was forecast to hit $187.8bn by 2027-28 and an interest bill of $26m-a-day.
Mrs McArthur said, “while the State Government and Treasurer Tim Pallas give no assurances at reining in Victoria’s debt or ruling out new taxes, they overindulge public sector wages”.
This year’s budget showed public sector wages have doubled since Labor assumed office. In just ten years, they have blown out from $18.8 billion to $36.5 billion.
Mrs McArthur said, “the $5600 cost-of-living bonus for all public servants is more than 7 per cent this year for an average employee!”
“What about the cost of living for non-government employees? Not only will they miss out on this $5600 ‘cost of living’ windfall, but they’ll also have to pay for it themselves through increased State taxes! It is an insult to struggling families and businesses.”
The ‘Mobility payment’ is an additional annual payment ranging from $700 to $3400 which recognises that job specs may sometimes change. That’s a nice extra bonus for our public servants!
Mrs McArthur emphasised the absurdity of such a payment saying, “that’s just reality for everyone else – normal everyday life, but public servants, it seems, are a special breed”.
“But here in the highest taxing State in the nation, the Victorian government is paying all its employees a sizeable allowance, just to compensate for the possibility that something might one day happen.”
The extra payments are described by Mrs McArthur as “the usual sops to unions, paying union staff, and encouraging membership at every opportunity”.
“It’s the same reason this agreement contains a truly mind-bending 27 different types of leave!
“If a business was run like this, it’d be bankrupt in days.
“The Government’s poor choices to keep sweet with the public service are financially unsustainable and disrespectful to all Victorian taxpayers.”
