The Minns Labor Government has spent $11 billion more on public sector wages than it told the people of New South Wales it would. Meanwhile, it has cut infrastructure funding for schools, hospitals, transport and water, the very things families need to keep moving, working and living well.
Acting Leader of the NSW Opposition Leader Damien Tudehope said the Government has lost all sense of balance.
“We have always backed fair pay for the frontline workers who serve this state and we always will, but when pay increases come with delays, cuts and crumbling services, the people paying the bill start asking where their money is going,” Mr Tudehope said.
Ten percent of people in New South Wales are public servants. The other ninety percent of NSW rely on the public services that are now being squeezed.
Under this Minns Labor Government:
Transport infrastructure has been cut by $21 billion since 2022
Water infrastructure is facing a $5.9 billion hole under the regulator’s draft ruling
$1 billion has been stripped from the health capital budget
Hospital projects been shelved or stalled or re-announced with micro updates to appear as if the government is doing something.
Elective surgery waiting lists have returned to near-COVID levels, with more than 100,000 patients waiting
Labor went to the election claiming wage increases would come at no cost, offset by productivity. That never happened. The result is a government that has run out of runway — high wages, low delivery, and no long-term plan.
Frank Sartor, a former Labor minister, warned of this very risk in his book The Fog on the Hill. He wrote:
“From 1997 to 2010 public sector wages and salaries in New South Wales grew at a rate way above not only their interstate counterparts, but those in the Commonwealth public service and the NSW private sector in real terms… NSW public sector workers were being indulged compared with their counterparts… Because of union control of the Labor government, a very significant economic rent was being paid… This annual extra cost severely restricted the government’s capacity to fund vital infrastructure projects such as new rail links.” (Frank Sartor, The Fog on the Hill, p. 45)
That is what is happening again, and it is happening faster.
Budget papers show that by 2028, wages will consume 55 percent of discretionary spending, up from 46 percent just two years ago. That leaves less than half the budget to serve everyone else.
We need to support our workers and the people they serve. Labor has forgotten the second half of that promise.