South Australian Treasurer Stephen Mullighan’s message to public sector unions over wages

Newly minted Treasurer Stephen Mullighan has warned public sector unions to temper wage demands ahead of his June 2 state budget.

PUBLIC servants are being sent a clear message to avoid excessive wage claims by newly minted Treasurer Stephen Mullighan ahead of his first state budget.

In an interview with The Advertiser, Mr Mullighan said rising debt, inflation and interest rates would put pressure on his June 2 budget but vowed all of Labor’s $3.118bn in election commitments would be delivered based on pre-poll costings.

Forecasting he would deliver a surplus for the next financial year, Mr Mullighan cautioned public sector unions whose pay deals were coming up for renegotiation to temper demands, declaring it was not a case of “the brakes are off and these guys can have whatever they want”.

Treasurer Stephen Mulligan. Picture Simon Cross

This included ambulance employees, whose campaign to fix hospital ramping underpinned Labor’s March 19 election landslide.

“Every dollar that gets spent settling a wage claim above and beyond what we think is reasonable and what we might have provisioned for is one dollar less … to contribute to fixing ramping or that we’ve got to improve educational outcomes in schools and so on,” Mr Mullighan said.

“We will still be putting a lot of pressure on our wage negotiations to make sure that we just arrive at a fair outcome.

“We don’t want to leave workers behind in a high inflationary environment but, at the same token, we’re not just going to roll over and give them everything they want, because that means we’ve got less money to deliver services that the community expects.”

Mr Mullighan defended federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s support for a minimum wage increase to keep pace with the 5.1 per cent inflation rate, arguing: “Why wouldn’t we want a prime minister who sends a signal to the lowest paid workers in this country that they for the first time deserve a pay rise that keeps pace with the cost of living?”.

SA Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas and the-then Shadow Treasurer Stephen Mullighan release Labor’s election costings at Parliament House on March 17 – Picture: Michael Marschall

Mr Mullighan confirmed Labor would press ahead with plans to slash public sector spending by more than $670m over four years by imposing a 1.7 per cent efficiency dividend on public sector agencies but exclude frontline services: health, education, police, child protection, TAFE, courts and emergency services.

But he warned SA’s debt – last year forecast to balloon to $33bn in 2024-25 – was the nation’s second-highest after Victoria and signalled a long-term need to “recalibrate the capital program and stop taking on so much debt so that we’ve got capacity to look at other things”.

But revised plans for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital would not be completed before the budget and Mr Mullighan argued more than half of the state’s contribution to North-South Corridor tunnels remained unbudgeted, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison in February unveiling a $2.26bn boost to the $9.9bn, 78km, non-stop motorway.