Public Sector wages going backwards: Inflation figures show need to scrap the cap

In Blog
9 February 2023
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The latest inflation figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are sobering reading for thehundreds of thousands of Public Sector workers whose wages are held back by the Perrottet Liberal-National Government’s misguided wages cap.

Inflation for the year to December 2022 was 7.8 per cent, according to data released this morning by the ABS.

This is the highest rate of inflation recorded since 1990.

The cost of items such as food and beverages (9.2 per cent), fuel (13.2 per cent), electricity (8.6 per cent) and housing (10.7 per cent, and higher for renters) rose at an even faster rate.
“Despite these eye-watering rises in the cost of living, the NSW Government is determined to maintain its unfair and unjust 2.5 per cent wages cap on Public Sector workers,” said Stewart Little, the General Secretary of the Public Service Association of NSW (PSA).

The 2.5 per cent wage cap was introduced by the incoming O’Farrell Government in 2011. It has been maintained at that level regardless of inflation or productivity gains, with an even more paltry 0.3 pay increase grudgingly handout in 2021-22.

The one time the State Government ignored its wage cap, a one-off 3.5 per cent increase last year, still managed to see a real drop in workers’ spending power as the rate of inflation was well above that figure.

“PSA members are all over the state, working to protect and serve the people of NSW,” said Mr Little.

“The state could not operate without them.

“The Government is going into an election in March ignoring the cost-of-living crisis hitting the very people who deliver its services. “It needs to scrap the cap.”