Chief Minister must be serious about cracking down on public service expenses

CHIEF Minister Michael Gunner’s plan to ban public servants and his ministers travelling post coronavirus, with the exception of essential frontline workers being loaned out to help other jurisdictions, is a great idea – a long as he holds firm on the commitment.

• Public servant and ministerial travel to be halted, as new details of department restructures revealed
• Four departments broken up, seven to remain unchanged as extent of agency shake-up revealed

THE coronavirus pandemic has felled the NT’s economy but it has some silver linings, like making the government realise it can save a metric bucket load of money by holding teleconference meetings instead of public servants and ministers jetting off interstate or overseas to do business.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s plan to ban public servants and his ministers travelling post coronavirus, with the exception of essential frontline workers being loaned out to help other jurisdictions, is a great idea.

As long as he holds firm on the commitment, of course.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner walking to a National Cabinet hook-up. Picture: Madura McCormack

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Perhaps the NT will never again witness the messy drama of bureaucrats boozing up in a Japanese bar while on official business. The loss of drama will be missed but the savings celebrated.

The slashing of top-paying chief executive positions due to departmental restructures also looks great for the taxpayer.

There will be anxious backroom bureaucrats fretting as to what exactly the government is saying by chief executives being able to choose whether or not voluntary redundancies will be handed out once the restructure solidifies.

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It does feel a bit like forcing someone to go from playing goalie in the soccer team to wing defence in social netball overnight so that they’ll quit the mixed sporting club altogether.

A slimmed-down, less clunky public service, to a point, will be a win for the NT’s budget bottom line though at the end of the day.

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