Skip to main content
 

How the Tasmanian government screws its workers.

Most state governments have tried to suppress the wages of their employees. Nowhere have the effects been as savage as in Tasmania.

In most jurisdictions, public sector wages have risen significantly faster than those for private sector employees. Nationally, public sector increases – though constrained by state government wage caps – have buoyed average wages in a period of generally low wage growth.

In Tasmania, though, the reverse is the case. The Australian Bureau of Statistics wage price index is set at a baseline in June 2009: since then, Tasmanian public wages have risen by 39.2% against 42% for the private sector. Another way of looking at it is that public employee wages would now have to increase by 6.9% to make up for the progressive relative losses over the 12-year period.

The next chart shows how the cumulative gap has developed in the various states and territories. Tasmania has the greatest disparity of all.

To remedy these disparities, public sector wages in the “loser” jurisdictions (South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT) would need a single-year increase of 4.2%, 6.9% and 4.4% respectively. And annual wage increases after that would need to match annual private sector increases from then on.

In the other states, where the private sector has fallen behind, private workers would need smaller increases of between 0.6% (for WA) and 2.8% (in the NT).

For Tasmania, this disparity is a comparatively new phenomenon, and coincided with the Liberal government’s strict adherence to public sector wage caps. These took effect progressively from 2015, the year after the government came to power, and accelerated from 2018.

 

When we compare public sector wage growth between Tasmania and the nation as a whole, a similar pattern emerges. Here, disparity began a little earlier – in 2013 – but otherwise the pattern is familiar.

This is, of course, separate from the national argument that high inflation has sent real wages plummeting. The data on public sector wage suppression means Tasmanian government employees have a strong case for wage increases well above the rest of the nation. 

Popular posts

Medicare is bleeding to death. Will Labor ever do anything about it? GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin.
  How not to run a government. There’s a reason Tasmania’s hospitals and essential services are the nation’s worst. It’s because the state government underspends its own infrastructure budget by 27%.
  Which state has the worst housing crisis? The crisis is everywhere – and it’s the result of decades of deliberate neglect and failed ideology. This analysis reveals how each state rates, from the least-bad to the worst.
  In their last redoubt, the Liberals lurch further to the right – and oblivion. The Tasmanian election was a disaster for both major parties, but only Labor has a path back.
  The campaign to destroy the GST. Australia’s GST system – despite some serious mutilation by WA – remains one of the most effective and fairest in the world. That’s why the NSW government wants to blow it up.
  An unbroken record of failure. The last time the Labor party in Tasmania won a parliamentary majority was seventeen years and six leaders ago. Even against a tired, inept Liberal government, they still look unelectable.
We need to talk about Gina and Andrew. Natural resources are owned by the people of Australia, but mining companies don’t like paying us for the resources they take out of the ground. And when they look like having to pay more, their response is swift and brutal .
  Populism and the fight for democracy. Liberal democracy is facing its most perilous time since the rise of fascism a century ago. Between the GFC and now, their number has fallen by a third. Populist authoritarians thrive. What’s happening? And why?
  These are the people we’re locking up. Prisons don’t work. When you look at the lives of people being imprisoned, it’s no wonder.
  WA’s $40 billion fraud on the rest of us. Jim Chalmers has just added $11 billion to the cost of Western Australia’s dodgy GST deal. It’s an extraordinary case of political extortion. But is it even legal? And will WA have to give the money back?