Government credibility on the line

Monday 21 September, 2009

The Government’s credibility is on the line if it can’t say if budget savings are being made
The redundancy program finishes in just days. How much money has it saved?
Has the budget gone off the rails already?

The State Government is covering up its performance in meeting key budget savings, reinforcing as a sham the Premier’s so-called commitment to restoring trust.

After patting itself on the back for introducing budget savings measures, including voluntary redundancies, cutting the number of senior staff, reviewing middle management and cutting departmental budgets, the Government has gone suspiciously quiet on whether or not these savings are being implemented.
Yesterday the Acting Treasurer failed to say if the budget savings were being implemented and if targets were being met.

This is why the Government needs to adopt the Liberals’ policy of quarterly reports on the budget, so that all Tasmanians can see if their Government is doing what it said it would. This is another case of a tired 11 year old Government that refuses to be transparent, open or accountable.

For example, the Government said that it would offer a voluntary redundancy program between July and September. Now that the redundancy program is nearly over, the Government should say how successful it has been. How many applications were there? How many were accepted? What savings will there be to the budget as a result of the redundancy program?

These are simple questions that the Government would be able to answer. The fact that they are refusing to be transparent on the voluntary redundancy program or the budget savings in general means that there is a distinct possibility that the budget may have gone off the rails.
Peter Gutwein MP Shadow Treasurer