The NSW Government is offering to lift public sector wages by 4.5% in the next financial year, to be delivered via a 4% pay rise and the 0.5% increase in superannuation under the SGL in July. NSW will also create an interest-based bargaining taskforce headed by former FWC deputy president Anna Booth and former State IRC president Roger Boland. 

The NSW Government says the taskforce is to conduct its work with a view to:

• Adding a new, more consultative interest-based bargaining stream to allow frontline workers and their representatives to engage with government agencies to identify savings and productivity gains in exchange for pay increases;
• Ensuring the NSW IRC is independent, properly resourced and with real powers to prevent and settle industrial disputes; and
• Reviewing the tribunal's scope to address and resolve OHS issues or related workplace matters within the state jurisdiction.

Labor won the State election in March on a mandate to scrap the wages cap and to bring forward a modern industrial relations system.