The government is being urged to reconsider its pay freeze for senior executive staff within the public service following nearly 12 months of "outstanding work" in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In the early months of the pandemic, the Remuneration Tribunal handed down a decision halting increases to the wages, allowances and entitlements of senior bureaucrats and MPs in response to the slowing state of the economy.
But the tax branch of the Australian Services Union has asked the government to undo that decision and extend the promised pay increases to senior executives who were crucial during the pandemic response.
In a letter to Assistant Public Service Minister Ben Morton on Tuesday, the union's branch secretary Jeff Lapidos wrote all senior executives, especially those within the Australian Taxation Office, had taken on a difficult task and delivered the government's programs.
"Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan accepted the [government's COVID response] challenge and worked with the ATO's SES officers to implement these programs and new legislation in record time," the letter read.
"ATO staff would not have been able to rise to the occasion without the support of their SES."
Non-senior executive public servants were also hit with a six-month freeze on expected pay rises from April last year but the freeze was not extended beyond that.
For senior public servants, however, there was still no end date.
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"We accepted [the freeze] as part of the sacrifice so many in our nation had to endure," Mr Lapidos wrote.
"We ask the government to permit the Commissioner of Taxation to provide a flow-on increase in salaries for the SES in the ATO in recognition of their outstanding work for the ATO and our nation in doing their part in getting us through the COVID-19 pandemic."
The freeze affects more than 250 top officials employed by the tax agency along with more than 2500 in senior executive roles elsewhere across the public service.
Last year marked the first time MPs and senior Commonwealth public servants did not receive an annual wage rise since 2014. The median salary for the three senior public servant pay bands ranges from $200,000 to more than $350,000, according to the APS Commission's most recent figures.
But former department secretary Professor Andrew Podger slammed the union's idea, instead proposing a complete pay overhaul.
The former senior public servant said there was no use freezing, or unfreezing, pay rises when the wages had been arbitrarily decided in the first place.
"I would rather not have the pay freeze at all, but subject the public service to a careful market assessment of the appropriate remuneration to be paid," Professor Podger told The Canberra Times.
"I suspect that there would be a number of people in the public service who would not get a pay increase under such an assessment."
In November, Mr Morton announced a 2 per cent pay rise cap would be removed and wage growth tied to the private sector.
"Commonwealth public sector employees will directly benefit from ensuring the government's plan to strengthen the economy, create jobs and deliver private-sector wages growth succeeds," Mr Morton said at the time.
Professor Podger said it was important the government first reviewed existing classifications and wages before taking its broad approach.
"The problem is [the government has] tied it to the private sector in a broad sweeping view, and that's not appropriate," Professor Podger said.
"They need to do more careful study of exactly what the labour market is doing in the occupations that the public servants are filling."