Everybody freeze — this is a stuff-up
The news diary entry for Wednesday morning simply read: “9am. Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins announcement on Govt (public sector) pay strategy.” Innocent enough in appearance, this routine-looking event almost turned iceberg to the Government’s Titanic.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson intoned the latest advice from the Government’s Workforce Policy Statement and decreed public sector workers earning more than $60,000 can only expect pay increases in “exceptional circumstances” while those on more than $100,000 won’t get a cent more over the next three years.
Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins said any increases would be targeted at lower-paid public servants, largely those earning below $60,000, who account for about 25 per cent of the public sector. Hipkins said: “The guidance is consistent with the decision last year by the Remuneration Authority that Ministers and MPs would not be getting pay rises for three years because of the Covid-19 economic environment. The Public Service Commissioner, who sets the pay of public service chief executives, will also not be increasing their pay.”
Not surprising, this was interpreted as a “wage freeze” by most media, tasked as they are with reporting bureacratic pronunciations in readily understood language. This was promptly denied by Robertson, at a business breakfast: “It is important to note that this is not, as reported, a pay freeze”.
With a backlash from the core of traditional Labour support, the finance and public service ministers hopped from the wheelhouse and handed over to the captain. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern held the course and also declared it was not a freeze. The icy reception for the policy, whatever the Government wishes to call it, wouldn’t warm however. A public servant receiving just over $60,000 in our major centres cannot be described as well off.
“Don’t expect us to take this lying down,” a steaming CTU president Richard Wagstaff told the Herald. They needn’t. After meeting with the PSA, Ardern turned up for the media with Hipkins and Robertson in tow to repeat the freeze was not a freeze because workers on graduated pay agreements would still get pay increases by virtue of moving up. In the face of a rising appetite for mutiny, Ardern adjusted course, while claiming to be headed for the same destination, by conceding to factor the “cost of living” into negotiations.
Ultimately, this measure was meritorious — seeking to close the widening gap from the lowestpaid to the middle and upper echelons of the public service. That Robertson and Hipkins managed to so flub this line will put wind into Opposition sails heading into next Thursday’s Budget.