Tasmania has an excellent, dedicated and professional public sector. They deserve to be, and are, paid well, especially in comparison to the private sector.
The average wage in Tasmania is around $70,000. However, public servants, on average, earn around $110,000 per year, $40,000 more than most other Tasmanians.
Public servants will get a two per cent pay rise every year under the Hodgman Liberal Government and the vast majority of public servants receive additional pay rises after every 12 months of continuous service.
This means that most public servants are actually already getting pay rises of between 3 and 5 per cent per year.
The Government believes that public servants do deserve a pay rise and we have factored pay rises of two per cent each and every year into the upcoming budget.
The question for Labor is, if they want to give even bigger pay rises to people already earning on average $110,000 per year, what services do they want to cut to pay for it?