The Fyles Government must start negotiating with teachers about a new agreement in good faith or risk an exodus of educators from the Top End, the Australian Education Union NT has warned.

AEU NT president Michelle Ayres on Tuesday said the teacher shortage gripping the entire country could be exasperated in the NT with the government refusing to enter into meaningful negotiations which could ultimately lead to not enough teachers left to staff all the government’s schools.

“Our teacher shortage is national … unless the government steps up and increases salaries across the board, there will be nothing to attract new teachers or prevent those here from leaving,” she told ABC radio.

“They [the government] have to turn around and offer money or incentives to get people here, which is above and beyond what they are doing right now to keep them here.”

The comments come days after the government took their latest offer directly to teachers, who voted 86 per cent in favour of rejecting the wage freeze offer. The vote included 1500 people, or two-thirds of teachers and other staff covered by the EBA offer.

Earlier this month and in August, teachers took strike action to protest the government’s proposed four-year pay freeze offer.

Between 2021 and 2022, 51 full-time teachers and 474 Department of Education staff resigned, figures presented at Budget Estimates showed.

“What the government needs to be doing is getting back to the drawing board, having a look at their fiscal policy and figuring out a way around this wages policy that allows for our people in the Territory to have a ‘real’ wage increase that will allow them to cope with some of the pressures of CPI increases that have gone out of control, but also to allow us to have really attractive salaries here in the NT that would be enough to keep people here,” Ms Ayres said.

She also called on Public Employment Commissioner Vicki Telfer to sit down with the union and start properly negotiating.

She said it would cost less to stop teachers from leaving than it would to attract new teachers to the Territory to replace them.

CLP Education spokeswoman Jo Hersey said if the Fyles Government hadn’t wasted millions of dollars on “pet projects and roads to nowhere”, they would have the money to scrap the pay freeze.

“They must be shaking their heads in shame knowing they’ve wasted taxpayer money on pet projects that could have instead made Territory teachers the best paid in the country. But now they are here counting pennies, pretending everything is OK,” Ms Hersey said.

“Teachers deserve to have the opportunity to sit down with a government that negotiates in good faith.

Ms Ayres said the government’s lack of action on negotiating a proper EBA would have detrimental effects moving forward.

“We could find a job outside the Territory or elsewhere and be paid much better, and be closer to true amenities and cheaper housing while being closer to families and friends… government must keep schools open, the government doesn’t want to have to close schools, or run schools with less staff than they currently are,” Ms Ayers said.

The CLP said term three holidays were when teachers often made the critical decision whether to stay in the Northern Territory.

Education Minister Eva Lawler did not respond to a request for comment.