By Lucio Matarazzo

Just last month, roughly 70 per cent of NT public servants whose employment is covered by the NT Public Sector 2017 – 2021 Enterprise Agreement voted no to a wage freeze for four years.

The proposed wage freeze on NT Public Service (NTPS) salaries by the NT Government hopes to save $424 million for the NT Government budget over the next four years.

NT Treasury reports that in the financial year 2021-22, NT Government net debt will reach nearly $8 billion and that without significant policy adjustments, the NT Government net debt is projected to be almost double by the end of this decade to around $16 billion in the financial year 2029-30.

John Langoulant, in his NT Government Budget Repair report of March 2019, states his budget concerns and recommendations including:

• A significant gap between public and private sector wages has emerged in the NT whereby significant more generous wages and entitlements are offered in the NTPS.
• NTPS enterprise agreements having a high level of complexity, with over 970 different allowances currently being paid to NTPS employees.
• The recommendations include to restrain NT public sector wages growth into the future.

Salaries for NT public servants account for over $1 billion of the NT Government budget each year and together with non-salary expenditure items to support the NTPS workforce, accounts for over 30 per cent of the NT Government budget.

NTPS chief executives need to release full and accurate personnel head counts of all engaged

Since 2018, and following the Langoulant March 2019 report, NTPS total staffing numbers have increased by around 15 per cent to a total now of 24,612 employees whilst the NT population has declined and or remained stagnant since the year 2018. This is causing NT Government debt to increase.

The figure of 24,612 total NTPS employees excludes the 1,700 cleaners, grounds and maintenance personnel, canteen staff and critical classroom support staff engaged by public school councils. With these other 1,700 employees, it is now a total of 26,312 NTPS employees.

With the 2,000 employees at Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute, there are no less than 28,300 total employees on NT taxpayer-funded salaries, excluding those employed in non-government organisations and in the NT Local Government sector.

Taxpayers are also paying for the following publicly unknown head count numbers of persons performing work in the NTPS –

• engaged on ABNs as independent contractors.
• engaged by external labour hire firms as labour hire employees performing work in the NTPS.

The government should now mandate that NTPS CEOs publicly release the full and further particulars of the actual headcount numbers of persons engaged on ABNs as independent contractors or engaged by external labour hire firms as labour hire employees performing work in the NTPS and the actual financial cost of all these types of workers in the NTPS should also be known.

NT public servants in insecure employment do not have the same rights

Persons in non-executive employment positions in the NTPS are persons earning less than $200,000 per annum in the administrative, technical, professional and physical classification streams and also include other occupations such as teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, draughtspersons, engineers and other health-related employees.

Insecure employment is relatively short fixed-term employment, which might be rolled over into another short fixed-term; or is casual employment.

Non-executive employees in the NTPS who are on rolling fixed term employment contracts do not have the right to pursue alleged unfair dismissal claims in the Fair Work Commission, if their fixed-term employment contracts are not renewed or extended.

The rates of insecure employment and staff turnover in the NTPS contribute to reducing and or stagnating population growth in the NT, which in turn, reduces economic growth.

If the government were to mandate that NTPS CEOs cap insecure employment at five per cent, then there would not be the current 30 percent of NT public servants in insecure non-executive employment positions.

The types of grievances that can be taken to the Fair Work Commission tribunal need to be expanded

Enterprise agreements in the NTPS contain the following phrase:

“For the avoidance of doubt, the Public Sector Employment and Management Act (NT) is not incorporated into the Enterprise Agreement.”

The above-mentioned sentence reduces the scope and types of grievances NT public servants in non-executive employment positions can take to the Fair Work Commission tribunal.

At the moment, only employment matters in an enterprise agreement can be dealt with by the Fair Work Commission because the PSEM Act is not incorporated into the NTPS enterprise agreements.

This is a problem because there is no authority beyond the PSEM Act that may make and record binding decisions – upon which future decision-making may be reasoned – regarding certain types of grievances and appeals under the PSEM Act. Currently, no appeal decisions under the PSEM Act (NT) are on the public record.

Widening the scope and the types of employment grievances that can be taken to the Fair Work Commission tribunal can provide non-executive employees and CEOs with decision-making precedents on the public record.

If the government were to mandate that CEOs ensure all NTPS enterprise agreements now incorporate the PSEM Act, then this would provide non-executive NT public servants with a truly more cost effective option than the current expensive and cost prohibitive court of law option.

In 2016, a teacher who wanted to challenge the decision of the CEO of the NT Education Department to unilaterally transfer employment from a remote area school to a Darwin-based school (a distance of around 600 kms) had to pursue the matter in the NT Supreme Court – [2017 NTSC 69].

Security of employment, and NTPS appeal decisions on the public record, through the accessible, independent, and fully established Fair Work Commission, can reduce staff turnover and improve NTPS employment-related decision-making.

Lucio Matarazzo is a Darwin born-and-bred industrial relations practitioner with an Economics Degree who has been advocating, defending and representing Territorians for 30 years. Lucio Matarazzo Pty Ltd (LMPL) is an industrial relations consultancy firm based in Darwin that provides industrial relations services for employers and employees over the last 10 years.