Tasmanian Liberal MPs will take home a slightly smaller pay packet than their Labor and Greens colleagues this financial year in a move opposition parties have called a stunt.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein announced on Thursday Liberal members would not take a pay rise above the 2 per cent public sector wage cap, which has been in place since 2011.
The Tasmanian Industrial Commission had recommended a 2.5 per cent pay rise for MPs.
"We believe that it is important that members of Parliament set the example," Mr Gutwein said.
Opposition spokeswoman Sarah Lovell said Labor members would take the 2.5 per cent pay rise.
"What the Treasurer is trying to do is to wedge public sector workers into an austerity wage cap," she said.
Greens leader Cassy O'Connor said Mr Gutwein's move was a stunt, and said although the party would accept the commission's recommendation, the party had never pocketed the full pay rise.
"We recognise that members of Parliament are public servants, and if hardworking public sector workers have a wages cap of 2 per cent, so should parliamentarians," she said.
Ms O'Connor said she and Greens member Rosalie Woodruff donated the pay rise above 2 per cent to community organisations.
Public sector workers 'sick of being bullied'
Mr Gutwein's self-imposed wage cap comes as the state's health unions rallied on Hobart's Parliament lawns calling for the wage cap to be scrapped.
But the Treasurer said that would not happen.
"I would hope that the unions would accept that this is sensible, this is fair and, most importantly, it is affordable," he said.
"A 1 per cent increase above the 2 per cent wage cap will cost the state budget 28 million [dollars] a year — and that is every year, and it compounds.
"That means that we've got less money to employ teachers, to employ nurses, to employ doctors."
Tim Jacobson from the Health and Community Sector Union said Mr Gutwein's comments were "a bit rich".
"He won't negotiate in good faith, we've had enough," he said.
"I am sick of this man's bullying, public sector workers are sick of his bullying."
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Union Federation's Emily Shepherd said there were 250 vacancies within the Tasmanian Health Service, and Tasmanian nurses would soon be the worst paid in the country.
"Obviously that is very concerning when we are struggling to retain the current workforce, and recruit to it," she said.
