Victoria to slash thousand public service jobs protecting to save billions

ABC NEWS (Australia)

More than 1- thousand public service jobs in Victoria will be slashed under a state government cost-cutting plan projected to save billions of dollars. The cuts include more than 300 senior executive and technical specialist roles.

Transcript

00:00These job cuts have been a long time coming.

00:04They were flagged all the way back in February, in fact,

00:07when the Treasurer, Jacqueline Symes,

00:09tasked former top bureaucrat Helen Silver

00:11with conducting a review into Victoria's public sector

00:14with the goal of managing to find savings

00:17by identifying inefficiencies.

00:20Now, for a bit of context,

00:21Victoria's state debt, as we know, is considerable

00:23and its employee costs, its wage bill in the past 10 years,

00:26has ballooned from $18.8 billion to $38 billion this year.

00:31And it's under that context that this review was carried out.

00:34Now, today, the Treasurer publicly released the Silver Review

00:37as well as the government's response to it.

00:39The review, in fact, recommended that the government

00:41slash 2,000 public sector jobs.

00:44The government instead will be cutting just 1,000.

00:47Of those 1,332 will be senior executive roles.

00:52In order to find additional savings,

00:53the government says will also reduce spending on private consultants

00:57and they'll also be looking to halve

00:58the number of business regulatory bodies in Victoria by 2030.

01:03So, for example, they'll be establishing a new body

01:05called Safe Food Victoria,

01:08which will merge all the dairy and meat food safety bodies

01:11into one entity.

01:13And the government says that by making all these changes,

01:15they'll be able to save $4 billion in the next four years.

01:19That being said, this morning,

01:21the Treasurer was already forced to make quite an embarrassing correction.

01:24The government had initially said

01:25that by cutting 29 public entities,

01:29they'd be able to save $427 million.

01:32Today, they're forced to admit that that figure instead

01:34should be $27 million.

01:37That being said, they're still adamant

01:38that they'll be able to save $4 billion over the forward estimates.

01:42$4 billion, rather, over the forward estimates.

01:44The government says that this plan,

01:46they've sort of framed this plan as a way

01:48to be fiscally responsible without having to make cuts to frontline services.

01:53Here's what the Treasurer had to say this morning.

01:55Frontline services are the cornerstone of what government deliver.

01:59There is no cuts to frontline services

02:01in the $4 billion savings that we have committed to

02:04as a result of the silver report.

02:06The public service, as the Premier has said,

02:09is hardworking and dedicated,

02:10but has become top heavy.

02:12We have a situation where we have too many executives,

02:16too many in the top of the range,

02:18and not enough people,

02:20not enough entry-level positions and graduate positions.

02:23Now, surprisingly, the public sector union

02:25has taken today's announcement of job cuts

02:27as a bit of a victory.

02:28The CPSU says, in fact,

02:30that up to 6,000 public sector jobs

02:32were on the chopping block,

02:34and that by the government only cutting 1,000 of them,

02:37they've managed to save five in six jobs.

02:39They've also welcomed the government

02:41targeting senior executive roles

02:43rather than people in lower-level jobs.

02:45That being said,

02:46they say that they reject the government's characterisation

02:48that the public sector is receiving too much funding.

02:51In fact, that they say that the public sector

02:54is not fully resourced to meet government performance targets.

02:57They also believe it needs additional funding.

02:59Victoria has a need for the work of Victorian public servants.

03:03This state only works because public servants work.

03:07Victoria works because we do.

03:08And, yes, it requires more investment

03:11in resourcing the commitments of this government.

03:14At this stage,

03:15we would argue that the Victorian public service

03:17is not adequately resourced.

03:19And, yes, we think that there could be

03:21some reshuffling of resources,

03:23a reduction in the executive level,

03:25an increase in the VPS level,

03:27but that is the argument of the CPSU.

03:29The opposition has also responded to today's review,

03:33saying that the silver review

03:35is a $4 billion admission of failure,

03:37and they've accused the Labor government

03:39of plunging Victoria further into debt.

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