In a bid to show the community that it is sharing the pain of tomorrow’s budget, the State Government will impose a 12-month pay freeze on its own political advisers as well as the entire executive level of the public service.

The measure – coupled with an MPs pay freeze already set for next financial year – will save $5.3 million per year over the next four years.

The freeze will apply to about 650 public service executives and 90 ministerial advisers. Both groups were due to receive budgeted pay increases in the next financial year.

The freeze on South Australian MPs’ pay – to save about $600,000 per year – is an automatic flow-on from a federal politicians’ pay freeze.

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However, these savings measures are likely to be dwarfed by a coming pay rise for the state’s 30,000 non-executive public servants, whose representatives have just started negotiating a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with the State Government.

The Public Service Association (PSA) held just its second EB meeting with Government representatives this week, despite the fact that the current agreement expires at the end of this month.

Union representatives say the state election delayed negotiations, but they fully expect to secure a pay rise for their members.

PSA general secretary Jan McMahon said the union opposed any employee being subject to a pay freeze, and she did not expect the executive pay restraint to flow to non-executive members.

“We expect those negotiations to take place genuinely and deliver a fair and reasonable wage increase for our members,” she said.

She warned that attempts by the WA and NSW governments to impose unilateral caps on public service salaries had been stuck down by the courts, and that any similar attempt in SA would be in breach of the state Fair Work Act.

“Any process by government that would seek to unilaterally put limits on outcomes of the EB process would be in direct contravention of the state legislation,” she said.