Redundancy investigation produces damning findings

Labor’s concerns about rorting of redundancy payments within THO South have been confirmed by the State Service Management Office.

SSMO’s long overdue review of WRIPs and redundancies makes for damning reading.

The review began in March after Labor revealed that a senior communications employee within THO South was moved into a vacant role for just two weeks before receiving a redundancy payment.

SSMO has uncovered a further six cases within THO South where employees were moved to short term roles, only to be made redundant.

“The review only reinforces Labor’s concerns that the redundancy system has been abused in the Liberal Government’s rush to sack public servants,” Mr Green said.

“And SSMO only assessed 11.5 per cent of redundancies within the Department of Health and Human Services – we don’t know how many more cases of rorting there have been across the agency.”

The review found that the documentation lodged by THO South to support WRIPs and redundancies was variously “complete, incomplete, inconsistent and inaccurate.”

Further, eighty percent of TNVR employment exclusion periods were incorrectly calculated and the information contained in the majority of business cases was not fully compliant.

The investigation also supports our claim that some low paid workers were offered less than they were entitled to.

Recommendations include that all staff involved in the WRIP and TNVR process attend training on the appropriate administration of the programs.

In future, staff will have to have been in a position for at least six months before they can be considered for a redundancy.

“While the Government claims that no wrongdoing has occurred, the recommendations make it clear that the system was abused.

“The Liberal Government was quite happy to allow this rorting to occur in their rush to sack teachers, health workers and other public servants.

“It has taken months of questioning from Labor to force the Government to clean up the mess they created.”
Bryan Green MP Labor Leader