Government hits restart over public sector pay

The Government has softened its stance on restraining public sector pay following two meetings with furious unions.

It will now review the policy a year earlier and will consider costof-living increases for public servants on moderate incomes.

Public Services Minister Chris Hipkins said this was not a backdown and the Government had always been happy to discuss cost-of-living increases.

But this doesn’t match his statement last week that public servants earning between $60,000 and $100,000 could only expect pay increases in ‘‘special circumstances’’ with the permission of the Public Service Commission.

Senior ministers have been blaming the media for the anger from the public sector over the pay restraint announced last week, when they indicated that no public servant earning over $100,000 could expect a pay rise for the next three years, and those earning between $60,000 and $100,000 would only get them in special circumstances.

Hipkins and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern first disputed that the pay restraint was a ‘‘freeze’’ because those on collective agreements with increases already built-in would still see their salary increase. It was never suggested that the Government would not honour its existing contracts.

Following the meetings with the unions both sides told media that the restraint was not in fact a ‘‘freeze’’, but just an opening position for collective bargaining negotiations, which would be entered into in good faith.

Council of Trade Unions President Richard Wagstaff said there was now room for cost-of-living increases in those discussions. ‘‘It was also agreed that there is scope to discuss cost of living increases in negotiations for all union members covered by collectives,

was injured in the attack.

The focus was on ensuring the staff member, their family and colleagues had all the support they required ‘‘during this stressful and difficult time’’, he said.

It is believed the Corrections officer received a knife wound to the neck, his wife was stabbed in the back, and another woman received cuts to her arms and hands.

Some of the victims were stabbed repeatedly. Stuff understands one of the victims had to be revived inside the supermarket.

The Corrections officer works at the Otago Corrections Facility and his wife is a nurse.

A manager at the supermarket was also injured.

The man’s mother, who did not want her name used, told Stuff yesterday she had been asked not to talk to media.

She had spoken to her son, whom she understood was injured trying to stop the attack. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition, but had since been stabilised.

A witness said the attacker called out ‘‘witches, witches’’ when he was held by people on the ground, and said the man had been using small knives.

Another person said staff members were stabbed as they tried to help, and that a customer who stepped in bore the brunt of it.

‘‘That’s when the other male customer hit him – he hit him with a couple of bottles as well, which didn’t have much effect.’’

Jenny McDowell, who was also shopping at the time of the incident, said a Countdown worker used his jersey to apply pressure to the man’s neck to help stop the bleeding.

‘‘The injured man kept saying, ‘My wife, my wife, is my wife OK?’

Countdown’s managing director Spencer Sonn said the company was ‘‘shocked and devastated’’ by the events.