Total remuneration for judges is no higher than it was almost a decade ago.
Data from the remuneration authority, adjusted for inflation, shows that annual compensation today is worth no more than it was back in 2012.
There was no comparable period when total remuneration had been so stagnant. While attributing this slump to the series of crises that have hit the economy over the past 10 years including the financial Covid crash and creeping recession is understandable, the RA must be warned that with inflation still running at nearly 8 per cent and the New Zealand economy teetering on recession waiting 12 months before raising the total remuneration package will drag real average earnings to an unacceptable level. We should in YE 2022 expect at least an increase backdated to reflect the full impact of inflation and compensation for losses accrued during the pandemic.
The figures show that, between 2000 and 2012, RA adjusted net fortnightly earnings rose by about 5-8 per cent. They then increased more slowly, by 3 per cent, in the run-up to the Covid financial crisis. The impact of that crash effectively wiped out all the gains in the previous 10 years. Last year’s determination, for example, when adjusted for inflation, in effect reduced the TRP by 5-8%. This on top of earlier losses in the 5 years to 2022.
Up until the end of last year, judges appointed since 2018 have suffered most, with their real-terms earnings falling 17.5 %, while those appointed before 2018 lost an average 9%. The sole cohorts to have a rise in earnings were, Employment Court Judges and Associate Judges of the High Court. This excludes the justified ‘redefinition of work type’ increases for other cohorts such as Coroners, community magistrates and judges of the Māori Land court.
This has huge consequences — particularly for the younger appointments to the District Court bench, who are no longer earning as much as their predecessors did as they lost 2 month’s sabbatical leave following every 5 years of service. The rise of asset prices increased daily living costs and now the impact of recession has increased this ‘intergenerational’ unfairness particularly between judges appointed after that reduction in sabbatical leave.
The RA in the ’23 determination must lift judges’ remuneration generally by 5% and for District Court Judges by 12% or risk a total breakdown in good faith bargaining in the future.