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NT Budget: Public service crackdown, wage freeze as debt to hit $8.4 billion
UPDATES: The NT Government, in its budget, has revealed it will implement a four-year public service wage freeze as it finally moves on a long-awaited, belt-tightening public service wage policy
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UPDATE: Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro has slammed the NT Government’s first budget since coronavirus as “lacklustre” and “dispassionate”, saying the financial plan has delivered no confidence to Territorians at a time when they need it most.
Attacking the government for again delivering the worst debt and deficit figures the Territory has ever seen, Ms Finocchiaro said Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s budget speech did not outline how he expects the NT to become the “comeback capital”.
“(He) should have outlined his plan for reforming our mining approvals processes to get those important projects going and changing our taxation regime so that we have the most attractive place to invest in the Territory,” she said.
Ms Finocchiaro also highlighted the “scary” financial forecasts, including how it is expected the cost of servicing the Territory’s debt will rise to $1.4m a day in 2023/24.
“Overall today is a very sad day for the Territory because it not only lumbers our children and our future with unsustainable levels of debt, it also clearly shows Territorians that Chief Minister Michael Gunner does not have a plan for growth for our economy, or a plan for our future,” she said.
In terms of the government’s move toward “budget repair” via implementing a four year public service wage freeze and handing out $1000 a year bonuses instead, Ms Finocchiaro said the “devil would be in the detail”.
“I know the unions are saying that they haven’t been consulted by the Gunner government on this reform,” she said.
“I think what’s most disappointing, is that we’ve had to get to this point, if the government had managed the books better, right from day one when it inherited a $1.8 billion debt, we wouldn’t be in this position we are in now.”
EARLIER: THE Gunner Government has committed $26 million of its $1.7 billion health budget to bring in extra staff and personal protective equipment (PPE) to respond to COVID-19.
The 2020-21 Budget outlines the Department of Health’s $1.703 billion planned expenditure for the financial year, which includes $88 million in Commonwealth funding.
The budget includes $26 million to boost the NT’s frontline health response to COVID with screening and testing, support at quarantine facilities, and operational costs like personal protective equipment.
EARLIER: The NT’s unions have already hit out at the government’s latest budget belt-tightening measure, less than an hour after documents were officially released.
The NT Government, in its budget, has revealed it will implement a four-year public service wage freeze and instead give out $1000 annual bonuses to workers regardless of their base salary.
But union delegates, including the heads of the NT branches of the Australian Workers Union, Electrical Trades Union and the Community and Public Sector Union, say they were not consulted about the policy and it is different from what was discussed after the release of the Langoulant report.
Head of the CPSU NT, Kay Densley, said unions were under the impression it would be a $1000 pay rise each year, which would be cumulative, instead of a $1000 “throw away”.
The unions say a bonus, instead of a pay rise, means hourly wages will effectively remain the same for four years, as will superannuation contributions.
The head of the United Workers Union, Erina Early, who is also NT Labor’s president, slammed the Gunner government as acting less and less like a Labor government and more like a “CLP, Tory” government.
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EARLIER: THERE will be “no needless spendathon” in the NT’s first pandemic-era budget the Chief Minister has declared, as the government throws down the hammer on a long-awaited belt-tightening public service wage policy.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner, now also the Treasurer, will sell the Territory budget as one “for the times” as this year’s deficit is expected to double from previous estimates to $2.45bn with debt to balloon to $8.4bn, or 134 per cent of revenue, by July next year.
But the NT Government will finally implement a new wages policy that will save taxpayers an estimated $424 million by mid-2025.
A key pillar of the Territory’s budget repair plan, known colloquially as the Langoulant report, the policy will result in public servants, regardless of their annual base salary, receive a $1000 bonus each a year instead of a 2 per cent annual pay rise.
Treasury boffins have worked the impact of the policy into the budget bottom line, though the policy will still need to be negotiated into enterprise bargaining agreements from mid-2021.
“There is no needless spendathon in this budget. There is no long shopping list. There is no extra sugar on the table,” Mr Gunner said in his Budget speech.
“This is a budget for the times”.
The government has also put forward other revenue raising measures, including a change to which bookies are taxed and how much they are taxed.
The measure is expected to rake in $3m a year for the government and involves making all bookmakers, not just the ones that work in racing, pay tax.
By bringing in more bookies into the mix, the government argued it’s been able to lower the tax rate from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. The maximum amount of tax a bookie will have to pay will also double, from approximately $500,000 to $1m.
The budget, released officially at 11am on Tuesday, also revealed the government has spent less than the $383 million it had set aside for COVID-19 emergency relief measures due to “lower than expected uptake of utility tariff subsidies and payroll tax waivers”.
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In total, the government’s COVID-19 emergency relief measures, like the Business Hardship Package and the Home Improvement Scheme, cost $291 million.
Of that, $97 million came from “reprioritising” unused parts of the government budget.
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