TREASURER Peter Gutwein has labelled a union call for his sacking ‘‘preposterous’’.
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CPSU general secretary Tom Lynch yesterday called on Premier Will Hodgman to stand down Mr Gutwein after the government rejected the union’s wage freeze proposal.
‘‘This treasurer is clearly unable to put together a realistic budget and deliver on the goals that the government is setting,’’ Mr Lynch said.
‘‘What the government has decided to do today is to sack nurses, to sack teachers in our education system, to sack fire officers, to sack rangers, to sack child protection workers.
‘‘Across the board our services are going to be thrown into chaos because this government was not willing to sit down and negotiate realistic savings.’’
Mr Lynch said the union’s proposal delivered the same savings the government’s wage freeze bill would have for this financial year.
‘‘In the years after that we said we would sit down and negotiate with the government. What we did was we deferred an increase that was due to workers in December this year until July next year,’’ he said.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein called the unions’ proposal ‘‘preposterous’’.
‘‘The unions’ proposal is that they put a pay freeze in place for six months and then have two pay increases next year,’’ he said.
‘‘That’s a ridiculous proposition put forward by the unions.
‘‘It leaves a $160 million shortfall in the budget over the forward estimates period.
‘‘We are not prepared to accept it.’’
Mr Gutwein said the Police Association’s agreement to an 18-month pay freeze had saved 40 jobs.
‘‘We hoped that (the unions) would be sensible, we hoped that they would be responsible in the same way that the Police Association was,’’ he said.
‘‘They’ve demonstrated that they have callous disregard for their members’ jobs.’’
Mr Lynch said Unions Tasmania would be considering all their options moving forward.