Public service to be cut by more than 4000 in 2018 State Budget

PUBLIC servants have reacted with fury at more than 4000 job reductions as part of Treasurer Rob Lucas’s Budget — but 1700 of the positions will transfer to the private sector.

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PUBLIC servants have reacted with fury at more than 4000 job reductions as part of the State Budget.

Just over 4000 workers are predicted to depart the public sector in the next four years, with 2286 to face the axe, and just over 1700 disability workers to transfer to the private sector.

Treasurer Rob Lucas has funded $170 million in golden handshakes for the 2018-19 financial year.

The job losses were met with immediate fury from Public Sector Association secretary Nev Kitchin, who said the Budget reflected Mr Lucas’s “longstanding obsession with counting the number of public sector workers rather than focusing on the value of the services they provide”.

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Mr Lucas’s target of 2286 job reductions is just over 200 more than former Labor treasurer Tom Koutsantonis’ cuts unveiled in last year’s Mid-Year Budget Review.

The new treasurer said achieving the cuts would be challenging, given the former government had failed to trim the state’s public service, but were necessary to achieve a $715 million savings target in four years’ time.

Public sector numbers rose by 3501 under the previous Labor government, despite it spending $448 million on separation packages between 2010 and last year’s election.

“You can spend money on targeted voluntary separation payments but if you actually employ people through the backdoor at an even greater rate then you’re defeating the whole purpose,” Mr Lucas said.

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The Treasurer’s reductions will include staff at seven TAFE campuses and three Service SA offices facing closure and 150 workers at the Adelaide Remand Centre, where operations will be outsourced.

Mr Lucas said frontline services — which include doctors, nurses, teachers, police and child protection workers — would be quarantined from the cuts.

Mr Kitchin said the government had “made a clear choice” to reduce essential public services and “set in train years of public sector unrest”.

“There are many public sector workers today who will consider their roles and jobs at risk into the future,” he said.