10.8% for Malcolm's political foot-soldiers. 2% for everyone else
Brace yourselves. Public servants and employees of Government Business Enterprises across the country are fuming over revelations that Prime Minister Turnbull personally intervened to give wage boosts to 30 of his personal staff averaging 10.8%.
Information revealed through an answer on notice to a question asked by Labor Senator Don Farrell through the Senate Estimates process the staffers were paid above the maximum $259,000 salary rate. The additional wages bill totaled $840,000 – averaging 10.8% assuming that each staffer was on the maximum rate to begin with.
Australia Post employees last year accepted their EBA9 where a special exemption to the Government’s public sector bargaining policy allowed us to roll-over all your current terms and conditions of employment without any trade-offs, but were restricted to an annual wage rise of no more than 2%.
In the end, we were successful in being able to extract an additional 1% paid as a cash bonus based on performance. This outcome locked in job security and ensured members received a wage increase within 12 months of their last.
Employees of other Government departments haven’t fared so well. For example, after three years of bargaining and a protracted strike and industrial action campaign, Australian Tax Office employees last year accepted an agreement paying 6% over three years. Considering that they will receive no back pay for the 3 years without an agreement, this agreement provides those employees with an average wage rise of just 1% per annum over a combined six years.
The rules are broken.
Something is seriously wrong when the Prime Minister personally intervenes to grant already highly paid political aids an $840,000 pay rise from the public purse, while his Ministers vehemently uphold a policy that restricts workers from being able to obtain a pay rise that recognises their contributions to the turnaround of profit-producing, commercial Government Enterprises like Australia Post.
Prime Minister Turnbull and his Liberal Government are completely out of touch with the realities faced by ordinary workers and their families.
This anti-worker Prime Minister and his lousy Government must go.
It’s time to change the rules. Unions across the country are building a movement to change them and bring fairness back to Australia. Working Australians need better and stronger rights at work to ensure jobs are secure and pay is fair. We need to re-write the rules to achieve this.
Australians are being asked to tell us their priorities. If you haven’t yet participated in the nationwide Change The Rules survey, be part of re-writing those rules and fill out this five-minute survey today by clicking here.
