Peter Gutwein,Treasurer
Rebecca White's reckless call for rampant public sector wage increases show Labor has learnt nothing from their last disastrous time in government.
An extra 1 per cent per annum wage increase above the Government's wages policy, if provided to all public sector workers without offsets, would cost Tasmania $285 million including superannuation, over four years – eating into the amount available to hire more teachers, nurses and doctors.
This week's confirmation that Tasmania's GST receipts are lower than forecast due to a lower than expected national GST pool is a challenge to our budget and one which will require continued financial discipline and a sustainable wages policy to manage.
Yet Labor and Ms White's response to a budget challenge is to double down on unaffordable spending. Rebecca White needs to explain how she would find the money to pay for her proposed 9 per cent pay rise, is it Labor's official policy to put the budget into deficit to pay for unaffordable pay rises?
Since coming to Government we have hired 142 additional teachers, 500 additional nurses, 130 additional doctors and opened 130 additional hospital beds.
The Government believes our hard working public servants deserve a pay rise but it must be fair and affordable.
Our formal offers to staff address workload concerns, hires more staff, all while providing a fair and affordable seven per cent pay rise over three years.
It is disappointing our public servants have not yet been provided with our offer in full to consider and have been denied a proper, democratic secret ballot where they can have their say without intimidation and stand-over tactics from unions.
It hasn't been forgotten that due to Labor's financial mismanagement they cut half a billion dollars from our health budget, sacked a nurse a day for nine months, slashed police numbers and tried to close schools.
It's clear Rebecca White's weakness would take Tasmania back to these dark days.
