State on the hook for extra $93m as umpire orders award pay lift

The Queensland government’s wage bill is set to jump a further $93 million this financial year, after the industrial umpire ordered a 4.75 per cent lift to award rates and allowances.

The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission decision on the 2026 State Wage Case, published late on Friday, ultimately mirrored its federal counterpart’s July call.

Unions had sought the 4.75 per cent rise, which the state conceded would be hard to “argue strongly” against despite warning of the pressure such a rise would put on its $40 billion wages bill.

The decision also follows Queensland’s first credit rating downgrade in almost two decades over “weaker budgetary performance”, putting even more pressure on the Crisafulli government.

The 4.75 per cent lift will apply to awards largely used for staff of First Nations councils, Parents and Citizens Associations, and auxiliary firefighters, but will also flow wider into the public sector.

This is because a range of collective agreements between much of the sector and the state include clauses to ensure their wages are not below those set in the relevant award.

The state ultimately put its position that given the prevailing economic conditions, the industrial context, and all the information before the Full Bench, it would be a difficult task for the state to “argue strongly” against a 4.75% increase.

QIRC 2026 State Wage Case decision

In documents filed as part of the case, Treasury put this figure at up to 29 of the state’s collective agreements – including six that are in arbitration – with a total cost of $93 million across 2026-27.

The state had already set aside $169 million in its December budget update to cover the inflation-fuelled cost-of-living pay bumps also built into many of the agreements.

Together secretary Alex Scott, whose union applied for the ruling alongside the Queensland Council of Unions, welcomed the above-inflation pay boost amid cost-of-living pressures and deal delays.

“In real terms, it will provide a wage increase for a range of members who are currently in the arbitration process and would not have an increase this year,” Scott told this masthead.

Those in arbitration who will see the increase in full span Corrections staff, administrative Transport and Main Roads staff, and all but some higher-paid Queensland Health practitioners.

Some staff under the “core” public service agreement, as well as unsworn police and Child Safety workers, will also get the full increase, backdated to September 1, regardless of the bargaining outcomes.