Health
Wage boost for Health Fat Cats
DANIELLE BLEWETT, Examiner Health Reporter
AS Tasmania’s public hospital doctors languish in a 15-month pay freeze, 150 of the Health Department’s bureaucrats saw their pay packets soar by up to $20,000 a year.
And the top bureaucrats’ increases came into effect just before Premier David Bartlett’s April wage freeze on Tasmania’s 28,000 public servants. Figures obtained by The Examiner show bureaucrats have creamed millions out of Tasmania’s health budget.
The numbers show that the level one, senior executive service health bureaucrat’s base salary jumped from $106,478 to $111,638 in March this year.
Level four senior executives in the Health Department saw their base pay rise from $191,263 to $210,390.
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Those bureaucrat wages do not include the European car and 17 per cent superannuation contribution that all executive service bureaucrats automatically receive.
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A health industry commentator slammed the executive service increases when doctors, nurses and allied health professionals struggled for pay rises.
“These are the true, entrenched bureaucrats,” the senior industrial commentator said yesterday.
“The rest of the public service tried to shed 30 SES jobs to save money and the Health Department tried to remove five, but only two real positions were abolished,” the commentator said.
What the Libs say:
Health Fat Cats – symptom of wider problems
· Bureaucrats given $20,000 pay rises while doctors still involved in a 15 moth pay freeze
· Situation is symptomatic of wider problem
· The SES grows by over 40% on Labor’s watch
The revelation that Health bureaucrats have received pay rises of up to $20,000 per annum whilst Doctors have been in a pay freeze for 15 months is outrageous and unacceptable but sadly it’s symptomatic of much wider problems.
Under Labor over the last 11 years there has been unprecedented growth in both public sector wages and personnel across all agencies. However it is in the Senior Executive Service (SES), where this growth has been manifestly excessive.
The number of senior bureaucrats has grown by more than 41% since 2002, more than doubling the rate of growth across the broader public service for the same period.
We currently have 285 Senior Executive servants which is 80 SES more than were employed in 2002.
This is another example of how wrong Labor has its priorities and just how out of touch they are with the community. This lazy 11 year old Labor Government needs to explain to Tasmanians why bureaucrats are enjoying pay rises at the same time as our medical practitioners are still stuck in negotiations.
It is no wonder that the expense side of the state budget has consistently blown out. Labor cannot manage the state’s finances responsibly and we saw this in the last 12 months when revenues were crashing due to the Global Financial Crisis and Labor allowed expenses to blow out by more than $311 million.
The State Liberals have recognised the need for leadership and vision to fix this mess and that was why one of the savings measures announced in our alternative budget was a reduction in the number of senior bureaucrats by another 25 positions saving around $5 million per annum.