Treasurer reveals public service job cuts will not shrink Victoria's wages bill
A mid-year Victorian government budget update reveals the bottom line of the state’s soaring public sector wages bill will not be improved by slashing senior bureaucrats and merging entities.
Victoria’s wages bill bottom line will not be improved by the slashing of senior bureaucrats and merging of public entities, with the spruiked $4bn splashed elsewhere instead.
Treasurer Jaclyn Symes has revealed the savings promised following the unveiling of the long-awaited Silver Review into the ballooning public service will not impact the state’s soaring public sector wages bill.
The mid-year budget update, released on Friday, showed the government wages bill continues to climb, with employee expenses forecast to soar past $39bn this financial year to more than $42bn by 2028-2029.
This covers Victoria’s 380,000-strong public sector which includes frontline services such as police and nurses.
Within the public service, which consists of departments, administrative offices and the Victorian Public Sector Commission, more than 1000 public service jobs will be slashed
under the major overhaul.
This includes more than 330 high paid executives and technical specialists.
“It’s a really important distinction to make in relation to employee expenses,” Ms Symes said on Friday.
“Our public sector wages bill will continue to grow because we want to attract more police, more nurses, more corrections officers, more childcare workers.
“Our wage bill in the public service will reduce and counter an increase to the public sector because not only are we reducing by more than 1000 positions, we are phasing out and eradicating a whole heap of executives and looking to recalibrate and have more junior positions, or more entry level positions, including graduates, which obviously mean your wages bill is lower.”
However, Ms Symes has not announced any figures for how many more nurses, police and prison officers and childcare workers could actually be employed with the freed-up cash.
There are more than 1000 vacant positions at Victoria Police, hundreds of prison officer roles yet to be filled and Victorian nursing graduates are struggling to find available positions.
Originally published as Treasurer reveals public service job cuts will not shrink Victoria's wages bill
