Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, what a difficult and awful position we’ve all been put in again. As someone who’s now served in both Houses, this is the third time I have been part of an unnecessary and, in many ways, unedifying debate about how much we should get paid.
If we look back to the 1996 ’40 per cent never forget,’ the Greens voted against that. During the global financial crisis when the state’s budget was in an extraordinarily difficult situation ‑ although nowhere near as strife‑stricken as it is now – the then premier, Lara Giddings, moved to put a pause, if you like, on parliamentary salaries and that was supported by the whole House. I am not sure what happened up here.
Ms Rattray – Through you, Mr President, it was supported in this House because members recognised the time.
Ms O’CONNOR – Okay, thanks for the clarification.
We didn’t support the increased pay to MPs back in 2018 and we will be supporting the disallowance now. This has been a very considered decision that we’ve made as a party room after a quite extensive debate. We understand the importance of having an independent umpire make these determinations, but as a number of members have pointed out, we’re in this position partly because the Tasmanian Industrial Commission left us hanging for seven years and there is now a pay increase on the table of more than 22 per cent, which is a catch‑up determination.
We look at this in the context of the communities that we serve. I don’t know exactly what Tasmanians would overwhelmingly regard as fair and reasonable in terms of the pay that MPs receive. I do know that in my community people are struggling to pay the rent, people are struggling to pay their power bills, their transport costs, and buy affordable food. For people who are living on the breadline or in economic stress, fair and reasonable is not a lump sum 22 per cent pay rise.
We have long argued that MPs’ pay should be pegged to state servants’ pay increases in an incremental process. We are, after all, public servants, but to date, our encouragement of various governments to do this has not been taken up. There seems to be some weird logic that if we peg MPs’ salary incremental increases to state servants’ incremental pay rises, then some government might give state servants a bigger pay rise so they can get a one, which is a deeply flawed logic.
I am inclined to agree that this pay rise, although it has been set by an independent umpire, is not in line with community expectations when there is so much hardship in our community and cost-of-living pressures are only intensifying, and we have a government that is doing too little to address that.
We have been put in a very difficult position and when I say we, I mean the collective of the parliament by the Premiers move to disallow the determination of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission. But here we are looking down the barrel of a net debt of something like $13 billion according to the Treasury’s financial outlook during the state election campaign, within two years.
We’ve had it confirmed by government that the plan to sack 2500 thousand public servants is ongoing. That is, the government is committed to sacking 2500 thousand public servants. Now in some part that’ll be presumably in their mind to help pay down debt, but of course, as we know, in some part that’ll be to pay for a stadium this state can’t afford and doesn’t need.
I have listened very carefully to members contributions, and I empathise with an enormous amount and agree with enormous amount of what is said. So far, there have been 8 speakers on this disallowance motion about MPs salaries. The other night when I brought on a motion about the risk to our communities caused by climate change, there was one substantive contribution from a member in this place, the member for Nelson, a very brief contribution from Mr Vincent, and then a winding up by the Leader for Government.
I simply note that. The most serious social, environmental and economic challenge of our times invited one substantive contribution from a member of this place and so far, on the topic of MPs pay there have been 8. I simply note that. While it has been a difficult decision for us as Greens, it is consistent with our long-standing position, our values and our appreciation of the context of the lives of our constituents and why we will be supporting disallowance.
