Claudia Ferguson of the Bay Post reports that Eurobodalla Council Mayor, Liz Innes, has used Facebook to spark conversations around wage subsidies asking:
"How about we start a conversation on politicians and bureaucrats reducing their wages for an interim period to help people in the hospitality and retail trade who are doing it particularly tough," she said.
"In that conversation, we also need to talk about an increase in wages for front line health workers. These are conversations we need to have. If we are going to continue lockdowns, it is going to have a continuous affect and we really need to start thinking about that."
"If the catch phrase is - 'we are all in this together', well then we need to all be in this together.
This comment, published in the media, has not gone down well for those who are now attempting to find extra money to cover the recent rate rise and fees increase that Council adopted just two months ago.
A General-Purpose rate income increase of 2% in accordance with the rate peg amount approved by IPART
Adoption of the maximum rate of a 6% interest to be charged on overdue rates and charges for 2021-22
Waste collection charges to be increased by 2%.
The Environment Levy to increase by 2%
The water consumption charge to increase by 1.3% and the water availability charge to increase by 2.9%.
The sewer availability charge to increase by 2% Liquid trade waste charges will increase by 2.6%
On top of the rate rise the councillors all agreed to vote themselves a pay rise and to award themselves the maximum mayoral and councillor fee increase of 2% for the 2021-22 financial year, with effect from 1 July 2021.
Note that the maximum fees for Regional Rural councils for 2021-22, including the full Tribunal determination, are set at $20,690 for Councillors and $45,140 for the additional Mayoral allowance.
(The Motion on being put was declared CARRIED)
Division For the Motion: Clrs P Constable, L Innes, P McGinlay, R Pollock, J Tait and J Thomson.
Against the Motion: Clr A Mayne.
In June 2021 the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced that the state government would be lifting the freeze on public sector wages from July 1st saying that public sector employees, including paramedics and police, will receive a wage increase of up to 2.5% from the start of the 2021-22 financial year after the government froze salary growth in May 2020.
The government had said of the 2020 freezing of the public sector pays would help to ‘protect public service jobs’ amid rising unemployment. In June Mr Perrottet said that the government was "in a position to bring back salary growth since the NSW economy had rebounded – even though the impact of COVID-19 was still being felt in the wider economy".
With a CPI at 1.7 he said now was a good time to reward the public sector.
The question could be asked of the Mayor "How about we start a conversation on politicians and bureaucrats reducing their wages for an interim period to help people in the hospitality and retail trade who are doing it particularly tough."
The total salary costs of Council's senior management is very well hidden within the Council website. The last time anyone attempted to discover the GM's salary saw a GIPA request all but ignored with a revelation only made eighteen months after she was awarded a wage increase. In all the combined income of the General Manager, the executive managers ,the Mayor and the Councillors totals more than $1,500,000 per year.
So Mayor, once again.... "How about we start a conversation on politicians and bureaucrats reducing their wages for an interim period to help people in the hospitality and retail trade who are doing it particularly tough."
Or maybe you are referring to the local member, to the federal members, or the bureaucrats at RMS, the OLG, NSW Health, Land Services, NSW Police.
Please tell us who are these politicians and bureaucrats, in your opinion, who should reduce their wages for an interim period to help people in the hospitality and retail trade who are doing it particularly tough?
