Major departments fall in line on APS pay, conditions offer

Services Australia, Home Affairs and the Australian Taxation Office have all voted up an 11.2 per cent pay offer and a suite of new common conditions, ahead of a March deadline.

The Department of Defence, the fourth major Australian Public Service agency voted in support of their agreement earlier in February.

Results in the agencies, which all employ more than 10,000 staff, included:

Staff expressed strong support in Services Australia, Home Affairs and Defence, while the Australian Taxation Office returned a lower "yes" vote - but still a commanding majority.

The Community and Public Sector Union claimed the results as a win, after talks over pay dragged out to eight months last year.

"We have been pleased to see high turnout and strong positive responses, with ballot results reflecting the wider sentiment that exists among employees," national secretary Melissa Donnelly said.

"This is a good package that is already delivering APS employees strong, industry-leading conditions, improved pay, and a financial boost."

The results will come as a relief to the Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher, as the government shakes off a history of messy and protracted pay talks with major agencies.

Home Affairs staff and management were deadlocked in a bitter pay dispute between 2016 and 2019, requiring arbitration from the Fair Work Commission.

Defence voted "no" on a 2 per cent pay rise in 2016, while talks in Services Australia - then the Department of Human Services - stalled in 2015 after union opposition to a 1.2 per cent pay rise.

The Australian Taxation Office - where the 2023 vote was markedly lower than other agencies - missed out on pay rises between 2013 and 2017.

"It is a far cry from previous rounds of bargaining where negotiations were incredibly protracted and APS employees' had to stare down proposed cuts to their pay and conditions," the CPSU national president said.

Dozens of agencies are still in the process of discussing or voting on enterprise agreements, with a deadline of March 14.

The government set that deadline in November 2023, when it announced 11.2 per cent would be its final pay offer.

Agencies that reach in-principle agreement on their enterprise agreements by March 14 will receive a one-off bonus, which brings forward the first scheduled pay rise of 4 per cent.

As of Wednesday, 47 of 102 APS agencies had voted up their agreements.

Enterprise agreements were negotiated through two different bargaining rounds - one a service-wide negotiation, and another at the individual agency level.

The Albanese government promised to return to service-wide bargaining ahead of the 2022 election, restoring a practice abandoned in 1995.

The talks set a common pay deal, more than 50 common conditions, and included a mechanism to address fragmented pay between the dozens of APS agencies.

While the Public Service Commission had initially thought it could wrap up pay talks by July 2023, the negotiations blew out until December, and included several rounds of industrial action across agencies.

The CPSU rejected the 11.2 per cent offer when it was first tabled in September 2023, citing underwhelming support from members.

The move came as the union faced pressure from a grassroots group to be more aggressive in bargaining.

But it later advised members to accept the bolstered deal in December, eager to avoid any delays to pay rises in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

Common conditions include substantial improvements to paid parental leave, and entrenched rights for flexible work.