McGowan ‘just getting started’ as government departments slashed

WA’s 41 government departments will be cut to just 25 within two months as new premier tackles a ballooning deficit.

Recently elected West Australian Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: Matthew Poon

Western Australia’s 41 government departments will be slashed to just 25 within two months, as the new McGowan government attempts to cut a ballooning wages bill and return the budget to surplus.

Touting the move as the “biggest shake-up of the public sector in decades”, Premier Mark McGowan said job losses would result from a 40 per cent reduction in the number of departments. The announcement surpasses Labor’s election campaign pledge to reduce by 20 per cent the number of departments.

But Mr McGowan warned that yesterday’s cuts were “just the beginning”, as the state’s budget crisis was heading towards a historic deficit blowout of more than $42 billion. During the election campaign Labor had promised to make $750 million in savings from the public sector, but the Premier said the deteriorating budget situation required even bigger cuts.

In a radical reshaping of portfolios, commerce, state development, tourism and science innovation will be brought together under one department while the Department of Premier and Cabinet assumes responsibility for Aboriginal affairs.

He says WA still lags behind other states, where government departments are as low as seven in Victoria, with South Australia the next-highest, with 22. “Clearly 41 departments was unsustainable and clearly this had to change,” he said.

Mr McGowan said the job losses — which he refused to put a figure on, and said would be reached partly by attrition — were a “regrettable consequence” of the financial mess and dysfunction left behind by the Barnett government.