Labor vows to go after government on health job cuts

Labor and the Greens will call on the state government to justify what they describe as job cuts in health when parliament resumes on Tuesday. Liberal minister Eric Abetz responds.

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff. Picture: Chris Kidd

Labor and the Greens will call on the state government to justify what they describe as job cuts in the health sector when parliament resumes on Tuesday.

A leaked Department of Health memo last week revealed a huge budget overrun and plans to rein in hiring.

Labor’s deputy leader Anita Dow said the Liberals’ claim that frontline health staff won’t be affected was “spin”.

“All jobs in the health service are important,” she said.

“With the health system already at breaking point, for the Liberals to suggest that cutting non-patient-facing roles won’t affect doctors, nurses and paramedics is downright dangerous.

“After ten years of the Liberals, the waitlist to see a specialist has more than doubled. More than 33,000 extra people are stuck on a waitlist compared to 2014.

“We will not let this government get away with pretending there’s nothing to see here and everything is OK.

“Labor will use the mechanisms of parliament to get answers for Tasmanians about the extent of these cuts and how the government plans to implement them.”

Minister Eric Abetz. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Liberal minister Eric Abetz said the public sector keeping an eye on staff costs was nothing new.

“Vacancy controls has been something that the state government has had for a long period of time, that was always in place prior to Covid,” he said.

“There was a hiatus with Covid that these things weren’t put in place.

“Now that we post Covid it is appropriate that we have those vacancy controls put back in place.

“The Tasmanian taxpayers expect us to be very good stewards of their money.

“The one thing that I would say about these vacancy controls is that it doesn’t deal with frontline services, frontline services will be maintained and in fact, increased and enhanced.

“We’re getting, for example, getting more police.”

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said the vacancy control measures were “a shocking indictment” on the government's performance.
“This is a form of cuts, when you don’t replace staff when they leave a position,” Dr woodruff said.

“That is an effective cut of service delivery. It’s not just a cut to the number of staff, it’s a cut to the service delivery. The figures that we’ve seen on our surgeries that are being performed are really, really so frighteningly concerning for somebody who’s on that waiting list, watching it growing. What we need is more money going into the health system, not cuts that are happening at the moment.

Parliament resumes on Tuesday, with debate on a Greens bill to decriminalise begging among the items on the agenda for debate.