Mr BAYLEY question to TREASURER, Mr ABETZ
The stadium austerity budget lays out cuts to so many critically important government programs. If that’s not bad enough, you’ve said that the real crunch will come next year. Your government has gone full Trump playbook, setting up a team to look for your next set of cuts. The embarrassingly titled Efficiency and Productivity Unit (EPU) has been tasked with finding hundreds of millions of dollars of savings from a public service that is already struggling to meet community needs.
Given the size of the savings the EPU is supposed to find, we’re already hearing concerns that your goal is for cuts to the public service to increase next year: 2800 job cuts is already a confronting figure. Will you rule out increasing the target in next year’s budget or could the number keep growing?
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, it’s interesting how everybody seeks to put their own label on this particular budget. In relation to the stadium, I invite honourable members to have a look at the budget papers and see what the expenditure levels are. I have in front of me the necessary information.
In the budget that was delivered on Thursday there is $18.6 million allocated to the stadium. The following year: $26.6 million. Is that going to fund public service pay rises over the next two years? Of course it won’t. That is where there has been exaggeration by those opposed to the stadium, basically asserting that if you don’t build the stadium you will have $1 billion each and every year for the forward Estimates, not accepting the fact that one is an operational cost, the other is a capital cost –
Mr Bayley – 50 million.
The SPEAKER – Order, the Deputy Leader of the Greens has asked a question.
Mr ABETZ – which is a one-off and will last for 30 to 50 years. Whereas, if you were to poke that $1 billion into wage increases this coming year, that would then be baked into the budget for each and every year thereafter. For this year, you might be able to get rid of a stadium ‑ well, what are you going to do the following year and the year after that?
Dr Woodruff – What are you doing to the public service, that was the question.
The SPEAKER – Order, Dr Woodruff. You can ask your own question later on.
Mr ABETZ – There will not be the funding. What’s more, and this is the disappointing thing, I am absolutely convinced that the Deputy Leader of the Greens understands that to be the case but is not willing to admit it because it will undermine the narratives that he is employing against the stadium.
Mr BAYLEY – Honourable Speaker, point of order, Standing Order 45, relevance. The question was all about cuts to the public service. Would he rule out increasing the target in next year’s budget, increasing it from 2800 jobs or could the number keep growing. There’s a minute left.
The SPEAKER – I draw the Treasurer to the original question.
Mr ABETZ – I am more than happy to answer that, but the member is now embarrassed by the introduction to his question because that’s what I was addressing, which undermined the then question that was tacked on to the very end of his question.
Does anybody want to downsize the public service? Of course not, but when you know that 46 per cent, rounded up to 50 per cent, of the budget is employed or used for public service wages, and those opposite and the Greens sent us to an early election saying there was a need for budget repair ‑
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER – Order. The Treasurer’s time has expired.
Mr Abetz – Oh, what a pity.
SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION
Mr BAYLEY – A supplementary question, Speaker?
The SPEAKER – I will hear the supplementary question.
Mr BAYLEY – The Treasurer still hasn’t answered the question about job cuts, so could he come to that? He also talked about capital costs and operational costs in the budget. Now, the Premier has provided us the cost of servicing the Macquarie Point Development Corporation’s debt, and that is around $30 million in 2030‑31 and it sits at about that level, but he has not provided, as was promised to the budget panel, the cost of funding the state borrowings of $375 million. Will he do that ahead of Thursday’s debate on the stadium order, because we know that that bakes in ‑
The SPEAKER – Mr Bayley, you are going into a new inquiry. You have a few seconds remaining. Can you refer to your original question and the Treasurer’s answer without diverting from that, please?
Mr BAYLEY – Treasurer, would you confirm that you will not increase the target for public service cuts above 2800 in next year’s budget?
The SPEAKER – Thank you, Treasurer.
Mr ABETZ – This is one of those questions people ask when they’re living permanent opposition. It’s one of those questions of ‘gotcha’. What I say to you is that we will seek to right-size the public service to ensure that that which is required by our fellow Tasmanians and that which we can afford will be delivered. If you want us to continue to increase the debt, the very issue that you sent us to an election on, there has to be some consistency and integrity in relation to that.
Dr Woodruff – How much more?
The SPEAKER – Order, Dr Woodruff. You still have more questions remaining. You can make a contribution then.
Mr ABETZ – That said, at this stage, there is no indication that that will be necessary.
