Bad news for public servants who want a pay rise
The state government is staring down a $1.2bn wage bill blackhole after using a rejected pay offer to underpin its budget.
Frontline workers, like police, teachers, nurses, and firefighters, are fighting for pay bumps as high as 8 per cent, with pressure mounting on the state government to strike a deal with just weeks left on existing wage deals.
But Treasurer David Janetzki's first budget, handed down on Tuesday, has made room for public sector employee expenses to grow by just 3.5 per cent on average over the next four years.
It means the state government — at worst — faces a wages blackhole worth $1.2bn if the unions get their way.
Teachers protesting outside Parliament House this week. Picture: Nigel Hallett
Already unions, including those representing nurses and teachers, have rejected the state government's initial pay offer of 3 per cent in the first year followed by 2.5 per cent increases in the subsequent years.
Nurses are asking for 'nation leading' wages after their Victorian counterparts secured a 7 per cent increase, while firefighters are expected to request 6 per cent.
If frontline workers are successful in getting the pay rises they are asking for, departments will need to find another $16.8m for firefighters, $141.2m for police, $458m for teachers and $587m for health workers.
Premier David Crisafulli and Mr Janetzki, in the budget, have touted plans to add 6,073 full-time public servants to the books including 4400 in Queensland Health.
But Queensland Council of Unions secretary Jacqueline King has questioned how the government could grow the workforce and make sure existing staff stay on without properly paying essential workers.
'We're concerned that the figures in the budget simply don't add up, and it's clear that the budget is missing millions of dollars to properly pay our public sector work force, including the additional over 6000 new frontline workers they hope to attract,' she said.
CFMEU members joined the protest outside Parliament House. Picture: Nigel Hallett
'The government keeps talking about negotiating in good faith, now they need to come to the table with a fair dinkum offer, otherwise we'll end up in a Yes Minister scenario with Queensland's hospitals empty of staff and unable to service our communities.'
Mr Crisafulli has repeatedly stated that the government would continue to negotiate in good faith.
'Wages are one component of an important part, so are conditions, so are resources,' he said.
'I do have every belief we will come to a deal … it'll respect taxpayers money will also indicate how much we value public service, secure and well paid and good resources.'
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union (QNMU) are currently undertaking protected strike action following months of failed wage negotiations.
Public service jobs are projected to grow by 2.24 per cent in the 2025-26 financial year, from 271,279 to 277,352.
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Sydney Morning Herald
7 hours ago
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This couple spent $500 trying to buy their dream home. They never stood a chance
Clutching a bright yellow bidding panel, amid a crowd of onlookers stretched across a concrete driveway, Rebecca Borkman was quietly hopeful she was about to secure her dream home. Advertised at just $700,000, the two-bedroom townhouse in the Sydney suburb of Bankstown was within the budget of Borkman and her partner, Byron Tolley, with $150,000 to spare. The couple were so serious about the home that they had shelled out more than $500 to obtain pest, building and strata reports in preparation, and discussed bidding tactics. But it soon became clear they never stood a chance. What Borkman, 33, didn't know when she arrived at the auction was that the reserve price for the property was $850,000, more than 20 per cent above the advertised guide. The sale had lured 18 registered bidders, and the townhouse sold for $896,000. 'As soon as that auction started, we were wondering why we even bothered showing up or getting excited,' Borkman said. 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Several Victorian buyers said they had recently paid for a building inspection on homes advertised within their budget. Then, even though auction bidding surpassed the top end of the sale guide – sometimes by hundreds of thousands of dollars – the home was passed in because it didn't meet the vendor's reserve. 'Agents often argue that it's the buyers and auctions that drive up the price, but conversations with the agent often indicate early on that the buyer wants a much higher rate than advertised,' said one of these prospective buyers. Another buyer looking in Sydney's inner west, a hotspot for underquoting complaints, said it felt like they were being constantly scammed. 'We are often lied to about vendor expectations and then spend money on building reports, contract reviews by lawyers ... We recently had an experience where the auction guide was $1.7 million and the reserve was closer to $2.2 million.' Following the Bidding Blind investigation, the Victorian and NSW governments are facing pressure from industry groups, consumers and opposition parties to stem the tide of wasted cash by overhauling underquoting laws. Victoria's peak real estate lobby group announced it would support the mandatory pre-auction disclosure of reserve prices by sellers, a significant policy shift for a group long resistant to such a proposal. Key real estate industry leaders in NSW have also backed that model, with both state governments promising to seek advice or continue consultation on potential solutions. Another idea to stem the cost of inaccurate price guides is to require vendors to provide prospective purchasers with free building and pest inspections before auction, as is the case in the ACT. 'There will still be buyers who will want to get their own independent report, but this removes the cost and the double up for a large portion of buyers, and it would directly remove the financial harm of underquoting,' said Consumer Policy Research Centre chief executive Erin Turner. In NSW, agents are required to provide prospective purchasers with a contract of sale and disclose issues such as whether the property has been subject to recent flooding, has any external combustible cladding or has been the scene of a murder or manslaughter in the past five years. In Victoria, sellers are legally required to provide a 'section 32 vendor's statement', which details information about any easements, zonings, strata scheme management and fees and whether a property is in a bushfire-prone area. However, buyers in both states are encouraged to seek their own building inspections, which usually cost between $300 and $1000 depending on the size of the property and whether a pest inspection is included. Contract reviews, also recommended, will generally cost $200 or $300. And in NSW, buyers have to pay a fee to access strata reports. 'It's not unusual to get 30 or 40 people through a home … let's just say half of them [arranged inspections and other due diligence] – there's 15 grand down the toilet,' said buyers agent Paul Mulligan. Loading 'There are a lot of gutted buyers out there, and what ends up happening is even worse than the cost [because] they go out and then they buy a place out of frustration, and potentially overpay or buy a lemon. It's huge. It's a huge consumer cost, emotionally and financially.' Victorian buyers advocate David Morrell, who described underquoting as 'cheating', said the practice came with an 'opportunity cost' for prospective buyers who missed out on properties when they didn't obtain access to enough pre-approved finance due to misleading price guides. 'If the agent hadn't lied to you at the start, you'd be living in your favourite home,' Morrell said. As a former property manager at a real estate agency, Rebecca Borkman felt like she should have been in a better position than most to navigate the auction process when she was searching for a home in Sydney last year. But the human resources professional said her experience was so painful that she eventually refused to consider buying any property that was being auctioned. Borkman and her partner instead bought a home in Carlingford, in Sydney's north-west, through a private sale. 'If something came up for auction, we would immediately write it off the list, no matter how much it suited our needs, because it was so damaging to our bank account, to our self-esteem and to our emotional wellbeing,' she said. 'If even I, with that experience [of being a property manager] in my past, feel almost scammed, then what's someone who has no idea what they're getting themselves into meant to do?' Borkman said the reason they had fallen in love with the Bankstown townhouse, with its front and back garden and 297-square-metre block, was because it had been undervalued by the $700,000 auction guide. 'The minute that we showed up there and looked at the property, I thought, 'This is so far beyond anything else that we had seen within that price range' … as it turns out, we were looking at a property that was worth $900,000.'
