Shadow Treasurer Rob Lucas said today senior public service executives were furious at Mr Rann’s broken promises on public service job cuts and have predicted hundreds of jobs will go, contrary to specific promises made by Mr Rann at the election.
These senior public servants have leaked highly confidential details of an extraordinary Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday to consider the recommendations of the Greg Smith review of the public service.
“Mr Rann delayed going on his three-week honeymoon so he could attend the special Cabinet meeting on Wednesday,” Mr Lucas said.
Cabinet on Wednesday decided to abolish the massive Department for Administrative and Information Services (DAIS) which employs about 2000 staff. Many of these staff will retain their jobs as functions and sections of the department will be transferred to other departments. For example, Building Services and Service SA will go into the Infrastructure area reporting to Minister Conlon and Fleet SA and Contract Services will go into the Department of Treasury and Finance.
Senior sources in DAIS have confirmed that the CEO of DAIS was actually on leave when the bombshell hit and had to come back from leave to conduct an urgent meeting with his senior executives on Wednesday to consider the ramifications of the Rann Government decision.
Cabinet also decided to amalgamate the Department for Environment and Heritage and the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation into one new department. Cabinet also considered an option to also include the Department of Primary Industries and Resources in the amalgamation but ultimately rejected that option.
CEOs of government departments were each provided with copies of selected sections of the Smith report early this week.
Whilst Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting did not finalise any exact details about the specific number of further job cuts, senior executives have confirmed that their Ministers have openly acknowledged that hundreds of jobs will be cut, contrary to Mr Rann’s promises prior to the election.
“The hypocrisy of Mr Rann’s position is becoming more and more stark each day and there is growing anger in the public service at Mr Rann and his government. This anger at Mr Rann has translated into a flood of embarrassing leaks providing information to the Opposition.”
“It is interesting to note that Mr Rann will again be overseas when the grim details of the broken promises and job cuts are revealed.”