The Rann Government’s budget documents reveal an unbudgeted blowout of almost 8000 public service positions over the last four years, Shadow Treasurer Rob Lucas said today.
“According to the Rann Government’s own budget papers, there has been an unbudgeted increase of 7750 full-time equivalent (FTE) public service positions over their four years at the helm,” Mr Lucas said.
“For example, last year’s budget papers estimated an increase of 469 public service positions whereas the actual increase has been 1976.
“The record for the last four years shows:
Budget Papers Budgeted Increase Actual Increase Blowout
2002-03 337 4184 3847
2003-04 -281 345 626
2004-05 610 2380 1770
2005-06 469 1976 1507
Total 1135 8885 7750
“So, in simple terms, the Rann Government’s slack financial management has meant that whilst they budgeted only for an increase of 1135 public servants, it somehow ended up blowing out to 8885 public servants!
“The extraordinary cost of this blowout is more than $500 million per year, or more than $2 billion over four years. Any manager of a private sector company that had to report that result to their board would be sacked immediately.
“Mr Rann’s and Mr Foley’s hypocrisy on the issue of public service job cuts is absolutely stunning, given the promises they made during the last election.
“Using the words they used during the election, Mr Rann has announced the ‘sacking’ of 1571 public servants in the budget, on top of the 222 public servants who accepted separation packages in June.
“That means almost 2000 public servants will lose their jobs, contrary to the promises Mr Rann and Mr Foley made to the South Australian people. *see attached
“Mr Rann and Mr Foley need to answer the obvious question – why has it taken almost five years to start to take action on these blowouts?”