$21.6m owed to public servants after decade-long holiday payment error

An error in public holiday pay has forced the NT government to stump up almost $22m owed to public servants. Find out who is affected.

Most of the affected employees worked for NT Health.

The Northern Territory Government must pay $21.6m to thousands of public servants owed back-pay after an error was discovered in how public holiday entitlements were paid.

A total of 4293 current and former employees were owed back-pay for the issue dating back to 2013, following a 2021 Fair Work decision regarding entitlements for recreation leave taken on public holidays.

A NT government spokeswoman said most of the people affected were former NT Health employees, however a small number of staff from other agencies were also affected.

The total number of current employees who received remediation payment was 1593, and their payments were made last month.

The Department of Corporate and Digital Development has also contacted about 2700 former employees, asking people to provide updated financial information to facilitate payments owing.

Former employees were contacted via an email, seen by the NT News, asking for bank account, superannuation fund and tax file number details to be supplied via email.

“The NT government has identified that between December 2013 and August 2024 processing of leave entitlements for shiftworkers who took recreation leave over a public holiday were processed incorrectly,” the email said.

“Remediation will involve payment of shift penalties and any recreation leave deducted for a public holiday that fell during a period of paid recreation leave.”

Work to fix the payment error began in March last year, under the previous Labor government.

The DCDD said it was committed to protecting the personal privacy of individuals and had arrangements in place to handle all information in accordance with NT privacy legislation, including privacy notices for affected individuals.