Govt faces grilling over public sector pay freeze

The Government’s decision to freeze the pay of many public sector workers has spilled into Parliament.

Greens and National put pressure on the Government during Question Time yesterday.

Ministers faced heat on the mounting bill for consultants, with the total cost increased under Labour despite attempts to bring it down.

Green Party public services spokesperson Jan Logie asked Finance Minister Grant Robertson whether he was ‘‘happy to grow the economy through astronomical levels of housing debt but not through higher wages for our teachers, our nurses, and our core public servants?’’

Robertson wouldn’t answer that question, saying he rejected its premise.

The Government’s focus was on lifting the incomes of the lowest paid, while keeping an eye on debt levels, he said.

‘‘Our recovery from Covid-19 has to be about getting the balance right.

‘‘We also owe it to future generations to reduce the higher level of debt that we are taking on,’’ Robertson said.

National’s Mark Mitchell accused the Government of pilfering the pay packets of nurses and teachers because it had let the salaries of ‘‘Wellington bureaucrats’’ increase by $1.3 billion in three years.

But Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins shot back, saying the bureaucrats Mitchell was talking about included the ‘‘500-plus staff employed by MBIE to protect our border against Covid-19’’.

Data from Te Kawa Mataato – the Public Service Commission – showed the core Crown wage bill is $8.4b, up 8.2 per cent from $7.8b in 2019.

The total Crown wage bill, which includes district health boards and state-owned enterprises, is $27.7b, up 7.1 per cent from $25.9b in 2019.

Hipkins appeared at pains when announcing the pay freeze on Wednesday to say the pay freeze was different to the one announced by National in the wake of the global financial crisis. This was accompanied by a cap on core public servant numbers and led to an explosion in the use of consultants and contractors in the public service.