The Government must halt taxpayer funding of union staff

The Taxpayers’ Union released:

The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that taxpayers are forking out at least $871,484 each year for MBIE staff to do union work on taxpayer time.

The secretive arrangement – the creation of which MBIE did not have any correspondence with Ministers – includes two full-time roles paid at least $101,911 each and 125 other roles where employees are able to take between 8 and 64 hours a month off work for union activities.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“This is nothing short of a scandal where taxpayers are being forced to fund the operations, and growth, of one of the country’s most powerful lobby groups that regularly engages in overtly political campaigning.

“If the Government was found to be giving paid government positions to groups pushing for smaller government and less wasteful spending the unions and opposition parties would rightly be in uproar. Taxpayers should not be paying for the government to lobby itself.

“If a PSA union membership offers worthwhile benefits to its members, they should have no issue with funding their operations solely from membership dues – instead taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab to fund the union’s dirty work.

This is outrageous. Taxpayers fund union staff through their taxes. This gives the union more money to fund the CTU and this gives the CTU more money to run campaigns against the Government.

It’s bad enough that MBIE has handed over more than $600,000 to the CTU directly to engage them on various projects, but now they are also paying for PSA staff to work for the PSA but be funded by taxpayers.