Redundancy plans hide cuts: Labor
Redundancy savings of $360 million for 17 State Government agencies have yet to be allocated to individual departments - meaning the true extent of Budget cuts is yet to be revealed, the Opposition says.
The Government included a total salaries saving of $360 million in last week's State Budget from its program of 1500 voluntary redundancies.
But these savings will not be reflected in individual departmental budgets until December's midyear review, masking the impact of the cuts on agency budgets.
Based on staff reduction targets previously published by the Government, it could mean the Health budget is decreased by $120 million alone over three years.
Education and State training providers could have their budgets lowered by $96 million, the departments of Corrective Services and Agriculture and Food could get $24 million less and Parks and Wildlife could get $12 million less.
The Opposition has labelled the cuts a looming fiscal iceberg which will practically halve Health's slim 1.4 per cent budget increase for 2015-16.
It accused the Government of desperate trickery to improve its "horror" accounts.
In October 2014, the Government announced a targeted redundancy scheme to get 1500 public servants off the payroll.
Its initial cost would be $134 million in 2014-15 to fund severance payouts before reducing the wages bill by $120 million a year for the three Budget out-years.
As of the Budget cut-off date on April 21, 1476 public servants had applied for the scheme and $63 million was allocated to agencies last week to fund severances.
A spokesman for Treasurer Mike Nahan said because agency savings would not be known until after the scheme ended on June 30, final costs would be allocated in the midyear review.
"Therefore, at Budget cut-off, agency budgets have not been reduced in 2015-16 and beyond to reflect the savings from the targeted separations," he said.
Shadow finance minister Rita Saffioti accused the Government of "again producing Budget documents which are in draft".
"It looks like they were going to announce the actual cuts when the midyear review is announced in December - probably on Christmas Eve," she said.
