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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-21 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:53): My question is again to the Treasurer. How many public servants does the government now propose to axe to meet its new savings target adopted on 6 April?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Federal/State Relations, Minister for Defence Industries) (14:53): The shadow Treasurer talks about a savings target. I will just come back to this point: we have a target; it is not a public figure. The figure that he is referring to, or the reference he makes to what may have occurred and what agencies were asked to do was, as I said before, to prepare a menu of savings options. I assume that happened when you were in government, although you made very few savings. It probably did not happen. Mr Lucas in the other house had no ability to make the hard decisions and cut spending. He could not make the hard decisions and cut spending; all he could do was to flog off ETSA, and that is the only contribution he made in terms of debt reduction. He never—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: —did the hard yards of trying to actually cut recurrent spending, and that is why this government, when it came to office, had to undertake some bloody difficult work—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: —some very difficult work, because the budget was out of control.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: We had to rein in government spending, deliver budget surpluses—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: As I think one of my colleagues just referred to, under the old cash accounting there was a string of $2 million surpluses

An honourable member: A million dollars.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That's right, $1 million—you know, just moving the numbers around. We made the hard decisions. We dragged the budget into sustainable surplus. The would-be alternative treasurer of this state, the member for Davenport, was a cabinet minister for the bulk of those eight years and he sat around the table when they were sloppy, when they were inaccurate, when often they were deceitful to each other, and they just spent and spent and spent. Your tenure as a cabinet minister has a big black mark on it in terms of anything to do with budget management. I think I will finish on that point.

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