Motion - State Service Workforce Reductions
[3.09 p.m.]
Ms BURNET (Clark) - Thank you, honourable Speaker. I rise to speak to the amended motion that Mr Winter has put forward. I support it and thank him for bringing this to the House. I'd also like to thank the Treasurer for his involvement in getting to a point where the government can accept and support this motion, because I think, at the heart of it, it goes to the transparency of what is a budget, which is of great concern to the Tasmanian people, of great concern to the departments which are trying to deliver with less and less and fewer and fewer staff. This ongoing cut to services and staff is one of the big question marks that we have around this Budget, and whether the Budget, in my mind, can actually be delivered. Getting to the point of surplus within the time of forward Estimates all sounds pretty unbelievable, really.
I believe that Mr Winter's motion is very detailed and very forensic, and I think there's great need for that, because we want to see the Treasurer being open and honest about how public monies are being spent and those cuts to services. In the first clause of this motion, it talks about $1.47 billion in operational efficiency savings and a reduction of at least 1700 State Service positions by 2029‑30. That's staggering, to think that a place like Tasmania that depends on public services ‑ We have some of the worst health figures, some of the poorest literacy figures. To maintain our population, all of these things depend on a robust public service. Any considerable change ‑ and this was quite a radical budget in many ways by Mr Abetz ‑ has to be considered in relation to what impact that will have on the Tasmanian people and the Tasmanian environment.
There was talk earlier about the Health spending in this financial year. Mr Winter, you might have said it was $131 million to be cut from the Health budget alone.
Mr Winter - In savings, yes.
Ms BURNET - In this financial year ‑ which is considerable for even a large budgeted department like Health. I know, and I know other members in this Chamber, have conversations with people who work in our Health Department who are under the pump. I was on the HACSU website yesterday and I was listening to nurses talking about trying to get wage negotiations happening. They are under considerable strain, and we know that. I hear stories of going into the emergency department and people waiting for a huge length of time. Now, is that because of the shortage of doctors, nurses, orderlies, anything that makes the system work? Is it the fact that there aren't enough supplies and things to make the emergency department work effectively?
I appreciate that Mr Winter has brought to us a very forensic and detailed motion and these answers are important and should be the basis upon which decisions are made, and not a hidden, untraceable, opaque process. So, I was also very pleased to be reminded by the Treasurer that there'll be monthly financial accounts from 1 July in addition to existing statutory reporting. I think that's also a very good thing.
Now, to a couple of points that Mr Bayley, Deputy Leader of the Greens, has said. He referred to the cuts, the way the Treasurer, Mr Abetz, takes to the public sector is to rein it in by cutting finances like money to the public sector but also positions. I also think there's a lot which comes out in the language. We heard this during Question Time, not only from the Treasurer in his contribution to this debate, but we heard it this morning, and that's about the blame game ‑ the blame game of the Commonwealth not coughing up, not paying. I know that Mr Abetz would love more of the GST funding as well, but we have to get our own house in order. I think what this motion does is help us on the way.
I'd like the government to take responsibility in relation to their spending and their reporting, so I'm very pleased that this motion is before us. I do think that we lose so much not only when we lose FTEs (full-time equivalents) through vacancy control, but we also lose it when people take redundancies. They are, in a way, lured out of the public sector when they have so much to give. One FTE is not necessarily equivalent to another FTE when you think about the corporate knowledge and the responsibilities that that person may have had over the course of their working life.
I support the motion and I thank Mr Winter and Labor for bringing it to the House.