Why were 22 NEW PS (public service/servant) jobs advertised

Why were 22 NEW PS (public service/servant) jobs advertised in the Mercury this past fortnight (12/3, 7 jobs, page 63; 19/3, 15 jobs, page 64)?

Total cost over $2M – plus the ongoing extra costs to support these positions.

Of the 22 PS jobs advertised, 14 were for the DHHS, a department that routinely blows its budget.

Premier Giddings has announced that 2,300 full time PS are to be made redundant. At least half of the NEW positions, costing an average of $86,000 each could be filled from the ranks of PS proposed for the scrapheap.

Of the 22 jobs, 3 were for the very top levels of Education and DHHS ($534,000); 3 were for specialised areas ($247,000); 5 were for front-line positions ($351,000); and the remaining 11 were for management-level positions ($946,000) which should be filled by redeployed staff – from the ranks of managers who currently wash around the PS serving little purpose and far removed from the front line of service.

If current PS are not fit for redeployment, whose head is going to roll for employing them in the first place? How will recruiting services be improved to ensure employment of capable PS in future?

Half of Tasmania ’s PS work a 38 hour week – the other half work a 36.75 hour week – for the same salary. The Tasmanian government cannot even standardise working hours and pay for its PS!

The axe hanging over the PS is being used to bully PS at a time when Awards are due for renegotiation. The threat of job losses is as much to do with silencing PS about outmoded practices and conditions as it has to do with making the PS efficient and balancing the budget.

The Mercury (21/3, page 5) reports 3 years of complaints by GPs about the low level of discharge information received about their patients following hospitalisation. Health Minister O’Byrne excuses the situation as being due to “limited resources available for improving health information …” The same old excuse trotted out over the past 10 years, as governments have thrown money at unplanned, disconnected IT solutions to paste over the cracks.

It has been reported in the past that state IT systems cannot identify which bums occupy which seats and how many seats there are in total in the PS.

The Mercury also reported on the “Probe into MP Travel” (22/3, page 1) – and the leading wasters of public money were failed Premier Bartlett and Health Minister O’Byrne. Multiply the known amount of waste by the hidden amounts, and it becomes clear why Tasmania is in the current financial predicament.

What is the background of these Ministers?

• O’Byrne: from school to union to Health Minister. DHHS can’t control its budget and its information systems are a farce.

• Bartlett : from school to IT specialist to Premier. In light of his IT background, why are modern information management systems not in place in the PS?

Premier Giddings claims that 2,300 PS must be retrenched because the state is in debt, even as her government advertises for 22 more at a cost of $2M in the space of a fortnight. However the usual scenario is likely to prevail: retrench today, rehire as hack consultants tomorrow, and whinge about lack of money to modernise the PS when challenged.

Within 12 months PS numbers will exceed the number today, by which time Bryan Green is likely to be Premier and Gunns is likely to be back running the state and walking the corridors of power helping to write legislation to profit the company.

Politicians like Lennon, Aird, Green, Bartlett and O’Byrne will still be gutting Tasmania , along with the uncontrolled, self-serving GBEs they have facilitated to bleed Tasmanians dry of hope for a future.