Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-20 Daily Xml

Contents

Women's and Children's Hospital

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): Supplementary arising from the minister's statement that there are no set targets: do the budget papers say anywhere that the Women's and Children's Hospital is forecasting a reduction in the net cost of $6 million a year and that there is a reduction target of FTEs at the hospital of 14 staff?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:28): Considering the Hon. Mark Parnell's eagerness for recycling in the parliament, he would be delighted with your question because it is yet another recycled question from Labor. Yet again, I am forced to tell the parliament that the budget FTE is an estimate of the FTE reduction if all budget savings were to be made through FTE reductions.

As I have explained to honourable members time and time again, there are many budget strategies that do not involve FTE reductions. One that is particularly relevant to the honourable member's question is the work that is being done to reduce the use of agency staff, because reducing the use of agency staff actually increases your public sector FTE. So I would have thought that a Labor Party that provided hundreds of millions of dollars of waste over 16 years in government would actually be applauding a Liberal government that is delivering public sector jobs.