Yesterday I noticed a story in the AFR about the coming cuts to the South Australian government, obviously on the related news of the state’s downgrade:
South Australia’s public sector has come under the knife, with the state’s treasurer axing 1000 jobs over the next three years and delaying a number of infrastructure projects as the state’s finances plunge into the red.
The job cuts are expected to save the government $86 million a year, while delays to projects such as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital redevelopment and the electrification of the Gawler and Outer Harbor rail lines will save $372.9 million.
Treasurer Jack Snelling justified the job cuts and said “doing nothing was not an option”.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure South Australians are not affected by the reduction,” he said.
The reason I noticed this story may not be so obvious. I actually noticed it because the numbers are so tiny size in comparison to what appears to be happening in my own state of Queensland:
New figures show the [health] department has 14,859 workers employed on temporary contracts – many of whom could face unemployment after the government ordered a freeze on extensions.
Education Queensland will also be heavily affected, with 13,774 temporary workers, followed by 1908 within Communities and 972 in Transport and Main Roads.
The exact job losses may not be known until August, when the Public Service Commission prepares its next quarterly workforce report.
So that’s approximately 30,000 employees making SA’s attempt look like a teddy bear’s picnic. But that isn’t even the half of it. I have actually done quite a bit of work with the state government over the past decade, so I’ve got quite a few contacts in various departments to verify exactly what is going on ‘at the coal face’. Here’s an e-mail I got back from a previous counterpart on querying the numbers:
Yeah, well actually I reckon 30K probably won’t cover it. Those numbers are just temps who either are casual type workers or don’t have a substantive position, and yep those numbers are realistic, maybe even an underestimate.
I’ve lost and/or am losing 40% of my guys, you know the numbers I’m talking about, and I am not sure what will happen to the other 10% who I have submitted to the review board. From what I’ve seen that lot are unlikely as well but those are just temps, what isn’t mentioned in that link you sent me is the contractors. In my area we are losing at least 90% of them and this includes dumping out projects that have been running for 2 years or so, including your favourite. I’m not sure what the hell they are thinking, but closing down projects that have already had $1mil+ spent on them without delivery is madness.
Obviously I’ve had to trim that message because it contained quite a bit of identifying information.
Now, as I said above, I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last decade or so dealing with the Queensland public service and I must admit, in my own opinion, there has been far too much bloat under the Bligh government. However, as Europe has recently shown us, a sudden retrenchment of government spending on this scale will undoubtedly have a negative outcome of the private sector. I obviously can’t verify the numbers but if my sources are correct we are about to see 40,000+ Queenslander’s take the long walk to Centrelink as of July 1 on top of large cuts in service related spending. Yes, those numbers seem crazy, but that’s what I am hearing.
I’d be interested to hear from others in the Queensland public service to verify.
I understand the liberal ideology of small efficient government on the top of private sector efficiencies, not that it often happens that way, but the magnitude of this switch, if it turns out to be correct, is very dangerous. You simply can’t kick tens of thousands of people out of the public service overnight without seeing negative repercussions in the private sector.
So if this is true, I wonder what excuses Premier Newman will come up with in August/September when, on top of the Federal government’s own attempts at austerity, the Queensland economy suddenly takes a dive.
Is “can-do” about to become “wish-he-didn’t” ?