Public sector wage battle looms for the Berejiklian government

Labor and the Greens are leading a charge to block any attempt by the Berejiklian government to freeze public sector wages, in a move that would deny the government millions of dollars in budget savings.

It comes as the cabinet is expected to soon decide on whether it will alter its wages policy, which allows hundred of thousands of public servants to seek a 2.5 per cent pay rise each year.

With major pay agreements covering nurses, police and general crown employees due to expire on June 30, one pathway available to Treasurer Dominic Perrottet is to use regulation to impose a wage freeze or to lower the 2.5 per cent wages cap.

The other option is the more laborious route of legislation. However, both approaches are likely to hit a roadblock in the Legislative Council where the government holds a minority of seats.

Both Labor and the Greens have confirmed they have plans to move a disallowance motion in the upper house if the government pursues change through regulation. Such a motion allows a majority block of MPs to overturn government regulations.

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers said they would also support attempts to block a wages freeze, denying the government two of the five conservative crossbench votes it needs to thwart a disallowance motion. However, Shooters MLC Robert Borsak said he was open to negotiating a lowering of the wages cap.

Greens MLC David Shoebridge said the party would "never agree" to wages being frozen or the cap being lowered for frontline public sector workers.

"The NSW government is the largest employer in the country with over 400,000 employees all across the state. If their pay freezes then that will have a ripple effect across the economy," Mr Shoebridge said.

Labor's industrial relations spokesman Adam Searle said the opposition would "oppose by any means available to us any reduction to the wages cap".

"This government has given big pay rises to top managers but now thinks the workers who keep our trains, schools and hospitals clean, the paramedics and nurses who put their lives on the line to keep the rest of us safe, the police on the beat, and so many other public sector workers, should all take a pay cut," Mr Searle said.

Separately, the Greens are prepared to support a one-year wage freeze on all public sector workers who earn the same or more than a backbench MP, which is $169,192. Mr Shoebridge said the Greens would introduce the bill to this effect when Parliament returns on June 2.

"While we will never support a pay freeze on ordinary workers there is no doubt that there are high earners in the public sector who can afford to tighten their belts," Mr Shoebridge said.

"This will not only provide a credible budget saving, it will also reduce the increasing gap
between the pay for ordinary workers and that of senior management and even MPs."

The Berejiklian government last week formally requested the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal freeze all NSW MPs wages - a move backed by Labor.

The looming wages debate comes after Treasury Secretary Michael Pratt told a parliamentary inquiry on May 15 that the department was costing several options to change the government's public sector wages policy.

His remarks followed comments by Mr Perrottet who revealed in April that he had been working on a cabinet proposal to halt public servants' pay rises for 12 months.

The unions are also gearing up for a fight over wages, with the nurses' and teachers' unions this month signalling their preparedness to take industrial action.