THE Public Service Association has launched the first challenge to the O’Farrell government’s new industrial relations laws which overhaul how the wages of public servants including nurses, teachers and firefighters are set.

The PSA, which represents about 100,000 NSW public servants, has told the Industrial Relations Commission it will challenge the validity of the legislation and also the regulation that outlines the government’s new wages policy.

The policy says that pay rises above 2.5 per cent will only be paid after they are offset by savings such as changes to penalty rates, overtime and carer’s leave.

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The legislation requires the Industrial Relations Commission to abide by the wages policy in setting new awards.

The president of the commission, Justice Roger Boland, said the challenge would go before the full bench in August.

On Thursday, counsel for the PSA, Adam Hatcher, SC, told the commission the union was not prepared to trade off conditions of employment to achieve a pay rise above 2.5 per cent.

He said the PSA intended to argue that both the legislation and the regulation containing the policy were invalid.

The general secretary of the PSA, John Cahill, said the union would argue that the new laws undermined the independence of the Industrial Relations Commission because it required it to strictly abide by government wages policy. He said the policy forced the PSA into a situation where it was ”effectively trading off employment conditions or the loss of jobs”.

Legal advice commissioned by the NSW Police Association from the barristers Arthur Moses, SC, and Yaseen Shariff found that it was arguable that the change forced upon the commission would be unconstitutional.

The Greens MP David Shoebridge said the party would move to have the regulation disallowed when parliament resumes.