Analysis: Budget repair has familiar ring of failed promises

IT has taken an independent review $230,000 and six months but a path to surplus is finally mapped out. The question now is whether the Gunner Government has the discipline to see it through

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner at the release of the Langoulant report. Picture: Keri Megelus

IT  has taken an independent review, $230,000, and six months but a path to surplus is finally mapped out.

The result is a suite of commonsense measures, many of which Treasury officials quietly say they have recommended to the Gunner Government for some time.

One of Langoulant’s key recommendations, ironically, is to reduce unnecessary and costly duplication.

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The question now is whether the Gunner Government has the discipline to see the review through.

History would indicate it does not.

Many of the recommendations have a familiar ring to them.

Labor came to government on a promise to rationalise the bloated public service and remove duplications and axe fat cats. That failed.

In 2016, we were told reducing the number of government departments would mean 26 highly paid chief executive and deputy chief executive jobs would go, freeing up $9 million in salary costs.

There were 648 executive positions in the NT public service in June 2016.

By June 2018, there were 658, though we’re told today it is 643.

Whichever figure you choose, it’s hard to see where those 26 jobs have gone.

A hiring freeze announced almost exactly a year ago failed miserably, with the public service expanding in that time.

The promise to install a debt ceiling should also be treated with scepticism, given the review’s author himself notes it will be “largely symbolic”.

Historically, debt ceilings haven’t meant much.

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A $75 billion Commonwealth debt ceiling legislated in 2007 was bumped up repeatedly.

By the time it was repealed just six years later, it had hit $300 billion.

It also remains to be seen if the Government has the fortitude to take on incensed public service unions.

United Voice and the education union have vowed to go to war over the plan to scrap back pay incurred if EBA negotiations drag on.

Most public servants are on agreements that expire in 2021.

That means negotiations for the next round will be in full swing at the time of the 2020 election.

Cabinet outcast Ken Vowles has a right to feel aggrieved.

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Many of the measures adopted today were those he pleaded for in the email that led to his sacking late last year.

The most important change flagged by both Vowles and Langoulant is cultural and that is to convince department bosses there are no more excuses for budget overruns.