Opinion: Labor’s $350m public servant bonus a shameless votes grab

Labor’s decision to pay Queensland public servants a $350m bonus in time for Christmas has a real pong about it. It’s the mug taxpayers having to stump up for a shameless votes grab, writes Kylie Lang.

Labor’s latest cash-for-votes ploy has a real pong about it.

Under the shameless scheme, tens of thousands of Queensland public servants are in line for a one-off cash bonus in time for Christmas, costing the state government – read, mug taxpayers – up to $350m.

It’s being touted as a “cost of living adjustment” of up to 3 per cent if inflation exceeds the slated salary increase.

This means, for example, that teachers, nurses and pencil pushers already due for a 4 per cent pay rise can expect their salary to jump from $96,687 last year to $100,554, plus a $2900 handout.

Note the bonus is not conditional on performance or productivity.

Unlike in the private sector, workers on the public purse just need to turn up to be rewarded.

And they already were, with their jobs guaranteed during the Covid pandemic when others lost theirs and are still battling to recover.

I say this not to take away from the great work many teachers and nurses do – but benchmarks should definitely be applied.

Anything less is just a careless waste, yet again, of our money.

And if, as Queensland Shadow Treasurer David Janetzki said in June, the Palaszczuk government has accumulated $13bn from its coal royalty scheme, then for heaven’s sake, put that money into hospitals, roads and other essential services.

Unfairly favouring one bunch of Queenslanders – public servants, whose numbers have swelled by 44,900 to 250,000 since Labor came to power in 2015 – is also deeply offensive to others.

Pensioners, welfare recipients, stay-at-home parents – where is their Christmas bonus from the state?

Why has the Palaszczuk government decided public servant should get a mega bonus while other Queenslanders suffer, asks Kylie Lang. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewWire

Already the government’s wage bill is its single biggest expense and it’s now tipped to grow by almost $2bn to $32.17bn this financial year, factoring in this ridiculous cost-of-living boost.

Tell me – how can someone earning $100,000 per year be on struggle street? Too many serves of smashed avo on toast?

One might hope those public servants who have more than a few neurons to rub together would not be swayed by this blatant grab for votes ahead of the 2024 election as Labor’s “popularity” tanks.

That they would weigh up the performance of the government on key issues such as youth crime, health and housing, and hold it to account.

But there’s little doubt the Christmas bonus will help appease the powerful United Workers Union the government needs to win at the polls next October.

The UWU this week called out yet another blunder by the state’s bumbling payroll unit.

Queensland Shared Services has overpaid almost 6000 ambulance service workers to the tune of up to $9.8m.

The tower of power – the government has a history of pay bungles.

As The Courier-Mail reported, the payroll unit accidentally paid 5783 paramedics a 4 per cent cost-of-living adjustment instead of 3 per cent.

That’s an overpayment of up to $1700 per person – and it’s not the first time such a stuff-up has occurred.

In an email to impacted members, the UWU lambasted the hapless payroll system for “multiple mass issues” this year in processing increases and back pay as well as continuous “individual errors”.

Remember in 2018 when premier-hopeful Steven Miles was health minister, Queensland Health was chasing almost $60m in overpayments to 42,000 current and former staff.

Then in March 2023 when Yvette D’Ath was in the final lamentable throes of the health portfolio, it was revealed thousands of workers were underpaid millions.

Others were overpaid, at a total cost of $260,000.

Same, same but different.

The Australian Workers’ Union Queensland state secretary Stacey Schinnerl said at the time that the department had been told to fix the payroll system for many years, but had been “dismissive and often arrogant about the problem”.

No kidding.

Dismissive and arrogant could be applied to a whole range of problems this government has repeatedly failed to address.

It’s not the ambos’ fault that they’ve been overpaid in this latest bungle by another public service cohort.

But as we reported this week, the Palaszczuk government is now in a position of having to claw back these latest misspent millions.

Laughably, it coincides with it splashing cash on others.

More fool those who fail to see this for what it is – political desperation and fiscal irresponsibility.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail
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Originally published as Opinion: Labor’s $350m public servant bonus a shameless votes grab