BUDGET TIME IS CRUNCH TIME FOR SECURING A STRONG PUBLIC SECTOR

A message from the General Secretary Natasha Brown.

The upcoming South Australian state budget is an opportunity for this government to demonstrate a strong commitment to supporting the South Australian community through resourcing a strong and effective public sector.

The government must activate the necessary levers for the future attraction and development of public sector workers. Part of achieving that must include recognising the need for a recalibration of wages and conditions, if the public sector is to be a competitive employer of choice in the current labour market.

Our state is in a healthy financial position, with many revenue streams seeing record levels of growth over recent years. Now is the time to invest in the workforce that serves our state.

By choosing to invest in our public sector, the government would be clearly demonstrating that the wellbeing and sustainability of our community is a key goal. Anything short of investing in our public sector would be interpreted as a sign that the wellbeing and sustainability of our community is not a priority for them.

In the past, public sector remuneration, employment conditions, and the associated job security, all contributed positively to the public sector being an attractive option in the labour market. But after years of budget cuts and privatisation, the South Australian public sector is now languishing behind other competitors in the labour market on each of these elements.

The ability to attract and retain workers to the public sector is now at an alarmingly low level. Many agencies are unable to fill vacancies for prolonged periods of time. There are skills shortages in many critical areas of government.

With the rise in energy prices and record increases in the cost of living, members are struggling to make ends meet, and are looking outside of the sector for financial relief.

The government must budget for and provide remuneration and employment conditions which make the public sector competitive and attractive to workers.

Published public sector workforce data shows an increase in short-term contracts compared with the past five years, and a decrease in the number of, and the recruitment to, ongoing positions. This is particularly evident in the General Government Sector. This trend must be reversed.

The government must provide agencies with the budget framework to enable and encourage ongoing employment as the default form of public sector employment.

PSA members also report that the levels of complexity, responsibility and expertise assigned to, and inherent in, many positions do not reflect the classification levels assigned to those positions, adding to the difficulty in filling vacant positions and retaining existing staff.

All these factors contribute to staff shortages in a number of key areas within government employment, including allied health workers, child protection workers and justice workers, including lawyers and corrections officers. Failure to act now will inevitably result in a public sector that is unable to provide the services our community needs.

The PSA remains fundamentally opposed to increasing proportions of our state budget going to private business interests and global corporations who operate with relatively little public scrutiny and accountability.

While we welcome the government’s commitment to cease further privatisation, in particular the reversal of the train privatisation and committing to no more private prisons, more scrutiny of current privatised public services is required.

As with the failed privatisation experiment, the so-called ‘efficiency dividend’ has also had its day.

The compounding effect of annual cuts to agency budgets, and the assumption that the same work will be done with fewer resources, undermines the very services the public trusts the government to provide to our community. It is a blunt instrument and a demonstrated failure to drive real efficiencies.

The annual budget contraction and the consequent increase in workloads has a deeply discouraging impact on PSA members and the services they provide. It is no surprise that PSA members consistently rate the need to address unreasonable workloads as a high industrial priority.

The state budget must address all these issues. The PSA has raised these directly with the Treasurer and other Ministers. There must be a clear acknowledgement by this government in this state budget of the contribution, commitment, devotion and pride with which our state’s public servants serve their community.