Federal government agencies will shed more than 4000 full-time staff next financial year but, beyond then, the future of another 8000 jobs remains under a cloud.
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Finance Minister Penny Wong and her department head, David Tune, were grilled in the Senate yesterday about the effects of this year’s tough budget on public servants.
Under questioning from ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries, Mr Tune confirmed about 4200 full-time-equivalent non-military jobs would go in 2012-13, and a small number of sackings were likely.
‘‘You cannot rule out compulsory redundancies,’’ Mr Tune said.
‘‘But my expectation, and I think the expectation of other secretaries of agencies, is that will be a very small percentage, if in fact any, of what actually happens.’’
A Canberra Times analysis of the budget papers, published earlier this month, suggests the government will shed more than 12,000 full-time jobs across the military and the bureaucracy over the next three years.
The projection was based on budget spending forecasts, which say the government’s total wages bill will rise by just 2.1 per cent over the three years, while staff salaries are likely to rise by 9.3 per cent.
However, Finance Department deputy secretary David Martine warned against relying on the budget’s forecasts to predict job losses.
Senator Wong also said it was wrong to ‘‘assume we won’t allocate any resources to new policies’’ in the years beyond 2012-13.
‘‘[As] new policy proposals come forward, the government also makes new decisions about resourcing. We’ve done that, I’m sure not as generously as agencies would want.’’
The Climate Change Department was among the hardest hit in the budget, and will shed about 300 jobs over the coming year.
Its secretary, Blair Comley, said last week too few staff had volunteered to leave and the workplace had since identified 60 people it might need to sack.
Senator Humphries said yesterday Senator Wong had ‘‘carpeted’’ ACT Labor parliamentarians’ claims that no public servant would be retrenched.
‘‘With sackings all but confirmed within the Department of Climate Change, the charade that nobody would get sacked has well and truly been outed,’’ he said.
‘‘For over a year, I’ve consistently called on Kate Lundy, Andrew Leigh and Gai Brodtmann to be honest about Labor’s clandestine plans for the APS, and they have consistently denied any jobs will go.’’
Senator Wong responded by highlighting the Liberals’ plan to strip 12,000 staff from the Australian Public Service over two years.
‘‘So you’re coming here, talking to me about 3000 [government job losses this year] and trying to make a political point about forced redundancies, and your policy is for 12,000 to be made redundant in two years, but you think that’s okay?’’ she asked Senator Humphries.
This reporter is on Twitter: @MarkusMannheim