Treasurer Rob Lucas appeals to Supreme Court to strike down $31 increase in leave loading for public servants

Treasurer Rob Lucas wants a court to stop a public servant pay increase – worth $31 to each of them but about $600,000 to the State Budget.

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Public servants face being stripped of an expected $31 a year pay increase as the State Government urges a court to overturn the modest pay bump and help make Budget savings.

Treasurer Rob Lucas is appealing to the Supreme Court and seeking it to strike down an increase in leave loading for thousands of public servants, including nurses and departmental officers.

He says the rise would cost taxpayers an extra $600,000 per year and can’t be justified as the Government scrambles to fill a Budget hole caused by a GST crash.

Public servants currently receive a 17.5 per cent bonus when on annual leave, which is capped at $882.10 per year.

The SA Industrial Tribunal has ruled that cap should be lifted, by $30.87, to $912.97. Workers hit that cap when their yearly salary reaches about $74,000.

The Government is appealing the judgment on grounds that the rise should be held to just 2 per cent, in line with other public sector benefits, and not pegged to a recent decision that lifted national minimum wages by 3.5 per cent.

It comes as the Government also enters broader pay talks with police, teachers and other frontline staff with warnings that tight financial times demand wage restraint.

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas. Picture: AAP / Kelly Barnes

Public Service Association policy and strategy manager Austin White said the move to cut a small leave loading increase was “mean and penny-pinching” and the union would use any appeal process to argue for an even higher cap.

He said it was in line with a far more “confrontational” approach to industrial relations taken by the new government.

Mr Lucas said the Government believed it had a strong case to put before the court.

“We’re lawfully entitled to test it, and our advice is that the decision shouldn’t have been taken,” he said.

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“Ultimately, we’ll have to accept the Supreme Court’s decision.”

Mr Lucas said the Government had set aside money for “sensible” wage increases across the public sector, which could be allocated directly to pay packets or spent on improved worker conditions.

“We’re not going to be adding to the pot, we just don’t have a capacity to,” he said.

The State Budget will be handed down on June 18, and the Government has warned it could be headed for a deficit in the coming financial year.