Jess Wilson vows to cut public service jobs and return state to surplus
One in seven public service jobs will be axed and the state budget will return to a cash surplus within six years under Opposition Leader Jess Wilson’s plan to rebuild Victoria’s finances.
In his first major response to this week’s state budget, Wilson will on Friday detail his plan to freeze hiring for what he calls “back office roles” in the Victorian public sector for the entire first term of the Coalition government if elected in November.
According to modeling by the Parliamentary Budget Office, the impact of the policy will see the civil service shrink from 49,408 full-time equivalent post sizes on 1 January 2027 to 42,224 positions by July 2029.
Wilson will tell business leaders and Liberal Party officials at a luncheon on Friday that cutting 7,184 positions – one in seven people currently working in the service – would save the budget $22 billion over ten years. He will also promise to return the budget to a cash positive position within six years.
The twin promises underpin one of Wilson’s key campaign messages: Victoria’s finances are unsustainable.
Returning Victoria to a cash positive position means the state generates more revenue from recurring costs and capital works combined. This hasn’t happened in ten years.
Tuesday’s budget projects a $7.7 billion cash shortfall for the next fiscal year, with deficits of similar size for every subsequent year through the end of the decade. These deficits will increase Victoria’s net debt, which is expected to reach nearly $200 billion by 2029-30.
Economists such as Saul Eslake have repeatedly said that Victoria can only start paying down its debt if it stops spending more than it earns, and that cash surpluses rather than operating surpluses form the basis of any budget.
Finance Minister Jaclyn Symes this week boasted a $727 million operating surplus for the first time in seven years.
Wilson’s speech to Enterprise Victoria, a business forum founded and run by the Liberal Party, was designed to spark a public debate on debt reduction.
The massive hiring freeze, which Wilson said would apply to 46 government departments and agencies, would be the first significant budget savings announced since taking over as Liberal leader and becoming shadow treasurer.
This is likely to provoke an angry response from the Community and Public Sector Union, whose members are already feeling the brunt of the budget crunch under the Allan government.
Wilson insists the hiring freeze will only apply to “back office” positions in the civil service and will have no impact on the number of teachers, police or firefighters employed in the wider public sector. It will offer an “Essential Services Guarantee” that it says will prioritize financing the government services people rely on most.
“Right-sizing back-office civil service roles is a difficult but necessary measure that I am prepared to take to guarantee essential services and repair Victoria’s finances,” Wilson said in his speech.
“Victorians are paying more than ever for these back-office roles, but outcomes and services continue to deteriorate. It’s time for a new approach that puts the essentials first.
“Victorians deserve a government that is honest about the challenges we face. My Liberal and National team did not create the financial mess Victoria is in, but we have a clear, measured and responsible plan to fix it.”
The CPSU has previously stated that the Victorian Public Service includes key frontline roles responsible for the delivery of essential services.
VPS expanded rapidly in the early years of the Andrews government. It is now 60 per cent larger than it was in 2014, when Labor returned to power. The structure of the VPS has also changed, with a greater proportion of managerial positions available.
Symes appointed former senior bureaucrat Helen Silver to review the civil service. Silver’s recommendations, which the government largely adopted, resulted in the merger of some government agencies and the scrapping of others.
Symes and his predecessor Tim Pallas sought to reduce the size of the civil service and the number of executive positions. The budget estimates VPS fees will increase by an average of 3.3 percent per year over the next four years.
The PBO calculates that under Labour’s current policy settings the civil service will reach 50,801 FTE positions by 2029-30.
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Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He had previously served as the newspaper’s chief correspondent and was a journalist with 30 years of experience.Connect via email.
