Northern Territory teachers voted against the Fyles government pay offer last week, further widening the divide between Labor and its traditional support base.
According to the Australian Education Union NT, more than 86 per cent of poll respondents voted to reject the pay offer.
Shadow Minister for Public Employment Bill Yan said it was a disgrace public servants like teachers, firefighters, corrections and nurses were the ones suffering from Labor’s wasteful spending.
“Territory teachers have overwhelmingly voted against the government’s pay offer, and have sent the message that the pay freeze isn’t in their best interests and it needs to go,” he said.
“This is all in the name of budget repair but the government has done more damage with their offers than they would have if they came to the table and negotiated.”
Mr Yan said it was important the Territory was an attractive place to live and work.
“We must be an attractive place to live and work, we must do our best to entice people to want to move and live here but this Flyes Labor government is doing all it can to make people look elsewhere,” he said.
“If Labor continues to make the public service poorly paid and an unattractive career option, they won’t have any public service left.”
Numbers from the budget estimates process in June uncovered how poorly the Fyles government had performed in the past six years.
“The numbers are alarming – between 2021 and 2022, there was a loss of 51 full-time teachers, and 474 Department of Education staff resigned, 75 more than the previous year,” he said.
“More alarming is that 65 stress-related matters were made which was up 54 more than the previous year – what this Fyles Labor government is doing is not working.”
Mr Yan said a CLP Government would scrap the pay freeze.
“A CLP Government would scrap the pay freeze and instead sit down at the table and negotiate real wage growth with the public servants who work so hard,” he said. “Budget repair would come from scrapping the pet projects and building a strong economy where government and private sector work closely for the good of the Territory.”
ENDS