NSW Premier Chris Minns stands firm amid mass psychiatrist walkout, declaring $90k wage increase is not feasible

NSW Premier Chris Minns has slammed psychiatrists planning to stage a mass walkout, saying their $90,000 a year increase is the equivalent of an entire first year nurses salary.

NSW Premier Chris Minns. Picture: NewsWire / Simon Bullard

NSW Premier Chris Minns has hit out at psychiatrists planning to stage a mass walkout on Tuesday, claiming their pay increase demand represents the equivalent of an entire first-year nurse’s salary.

It comes as Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson confirmed the NSW Government had made an 11th hour referral to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to resolve the dispute.

The premier said the state government had “increased the public health budget”, doing so at the “specific request of advocates in the field who said that it’s desperately needed”.

“We think it’s important to public safety and the mental health of the people that live in the state,” Mr Minns said.

However, the premier said the particular pay dispute for an individual psychiatrist was “the equivalent of a $90,000 a year increase in salaries”.

“That’s the equivalent of the entire salary for a first year nurse,” Mr Minns said on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the 25 per cent increase requested by psychiatrists is the equivalent of $90,000. Picture: Damian Shaw

Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson echoed her leader’s sentiment during a press conference on Monday afternoon, declaring the NSW Government had delivered “the largest wage increase” psychiatrists had seen in a decade when their pay was upped by 4.5 per cent in 2023.

“While we’re not not supportive at the moment of the 25 per cent wage increase, we have put our own proposition on the table, and my view is that it’s really reasonable,” Ms Jackson said.

“It is not just the 4.5 per cent increase that we already paid, it’s 10.5 per cent over the next three years.”

However, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists NSW chair Pramudie Gunaratne hit back at the premier, saying the figure “you and your government keep quoting” was untrue, misleading and unfair.

More than two-thirds of the state’s 300 full-time public health psychiatrists are set to walk out on the system, with the first resignations to take effect from Tuesday.

Ms Jackson acknowledged the psychiatrists weren’t just demanding better pay but also better working conditions, however, the state government has sought “urgent intervention” from the IRC to “try and arbitrate this challenge”.

Ms Jackson acknowledged the psychiatrists weren’t just demanding better pay but also better working conditions, saying the state government had “put in place an independent umpire” to resolve these issues.

She added that while the psychiatrists leaving would be “challenging”, the government would not be “leaving no stone unturned” and would be liaising with the private sector, virtual services and locums to ensure anyone needing help would be able to access it.

Opposition leader Mark Speakman said the Minns Labor Government had “abandoned patients in the mental health system” which was “against a backdrop of industrial chaos and budget cuts in the health care system”.

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