The most senior federal public servants, along with MPs, won't receive pay rises after a tribunal decided their wages shouldn't grow following the economic downturn.
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Parliamentarians, department secretaries and other high-ranking officials will have no salary growth from July, ending a three-year run of consecutive annual pay rises.
The decision means their wage growth will stay on hold until the Remuneration Tribunal next considers pay levels, at the earliest.
Tribunal members said the economic shock of COVID-19, and a federal government decision to freeze the wage rises of less senior public servants, were behind its latest decision.
It also follows a request in March from Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and the minister assisting the Prime Minister for the public service, Greg Hunt, for a stay on increases to wages, allowances and entitlements for MPs and top bureaucrats.
The Remuneration Tribunal meets at least yearly to determine wages for parliamentarians and the federal bureaucracy's senior officials.
Since 2017, the tribunal has lifted their wages once a year in July.
Tribunal members decided to hold pay growth for MPs and senior bureaucrats after the economy contracted 0.3 per cent in the March quarter, the Reserve Bank forecast it to shrink 8 per cent in the year to June, and nearly 600,000 people lost work in April.
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"With high levels of unemployment, wage growth is expected to slow," the Remuneration Tribunal said.
The federal government's freeze on wage rises for less senior Commonwealth bureaucrats was "significant", it said.
Tribunal members said they would continue to monitor economic conditions and wages growth.
MPs and senior Commonwealth public servants will receive no annual wage rise for the first time since 2014.
Their salaries have grown 2 per cent every year since 2017, bringing the annual pay of the secretaries leading the largest and highest-profile departments well above $800,000.
The federal government decided in April to temporarily delay wage rises for less senior Commonwealth bureaucrats, saying they must share the economic burden of COVID-19.
Wage rises due for lower-ranking public servants in the 12 months from April 14 will be deferred for six months.
Bureaucrats at 74 Commonwealth departments and agencies were due to receive wage increases in the 12 months covered by the government-imposed pay freeze.