Qld public servants will get pay rise despite wage freeze pledge

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has today insisted there was a 12-month pay freeze for Queensland’s public servants despite a deal with unions to ensure all 2019-20 pay increases still end up in the pockets of public servants.

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed her Government’s public service pay freeze will come into effect in the upcoming financial year amid revelations thousands of workers are in line for a pay rise.

The Courier-Mail today revealed that the Government had struck a deal with unions to ensure all 2019-20 pay increases, held up because of “administrative delays” caused by coronavirus, would still end up in the pockets of public servants.

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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says a freeze on pay rises for Queensland’s public servants would be implemented from “financial year to financial year”. Picture: Attila Csaszar

Ms Palszczuk today insisted there was a 12-month pay freeze for the state’s public servants and said it would be implemented from “financial year to financial year”.

“That’s how a pay freeze operates,” she said.

“I know a lot of people have lost their jobs. I know a lot of people are not happy about the pay freeze.

“I’m committed to the 12 month pay freeze.”

When asked if she could have worded her commitment better, Ms Palaszczuk said no – instead pointing out that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was introducing a six month pay freeze for the federal bureaucracy.

At a press conference on April 12, Ms Palaszczuk said pay increases were “on hold and that’s the end of the story”.

It is expected that tens of thousands of public servants will still receive a pay increase before the end of the financial year, but the Government has been unable to confirm how many workers will benefit.

LNP treasury spokesman Tim Mander said Ms Palaszczuk’s promise to freeze public service wages had now been “thawed”.

“When she (the Premier) originally spoke about pay increases, it was all in the context of the current pay rises that were happening,” he claimed.

“This is a Government that shows it cannot be trusted.”

The agreement with the unions is at odds with Ms Palaszczuk’s repeated public statements about an immediate bureaucracy-wide pay freeze, including a comment on April 12 when she abruptly insisted “it’s on hold and that's the end of the story”.

The deal to ensure 2019-20 pay hikes will still happen is detailed in a letter written on Friday to the Queensland Council of Unions by Treasurer Jackie Trad and Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace.

A letter to the Queensland Council of Unions from Treasurer Jackie Trad and Education Minister Grace Grace says the pay freeze will be enforced from July 1. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

In the letter, Ms Trad and Ms Grace said the Government would enforce the pay freeze from July 1 rather than from the date of Ms Palaszczuk’s original April 2 decree.

“The Government acknowledges that the COVID-19 crisis has caused administrative delays in the application of 2019 wage adjustments for a specific group of public sector workers, including those working on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19,” the ministers said. “Before we implement a temporary change to the application of the wage policy, we need to ensure all public sector workers are on a level playing field.

“This means the administrative application of the delayed 2019 wages policy will be applied before 1 July 2020 to ensure no disadvantage to workers in affected industries.”

A Government spokesman defended the decision but refused to say how many workers would be affected.

“The Morrison Government has a six-month freeze,” he said. “The Palaszczuk Government will implement a 12-month freeze.”

Opposition deputy leader Tim Mander said Ms Palaszczuk had “been caught out lying to Queenslanders about pay rises for public servants in the middle of a pandemic