Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:08): My adjournment debate is for the Premier. In the Victorian Public Service Enterprise Agreement 2020 the Community and Public Sector Union and the state of Victoria agreed to introduce the jobs and skills exchange. The jobs and skills exchange is a new initiative that exclusively advertises vacancies in the public service to currently employed public servants before advertising the positions externally. Victorians have endured immeasurable economic pain in recent months due to this government’s ineptitude. More than 73 000 jobs were lost between August and September last year alone. Many people fear that the worst of this is yet to come, with many more jobs at risk. Those at risk, however, are not those in the government offices in Lonsdale Street and Treasury Place. The jobs and skills exchange is, at its core, designed to ensure that no bureaucrat ever finds themselves unemployed, unlike the rest of Victorians who are employed in wealth-creating industries.

In the 2020–21 state budget $9 million over the next two years has been allocated to funding the jobs and skills exchange. The budget noted its objective is to encourage the lateral movement of employees to help fill temporary vacancies. This will ensure that many employees never have to leave the public service in their career. This is not conducive to a healthy state or an effective and efficient public service. Victoria’s public service should be comprised of individuals who understand and have experience in running or working in businesses, creating jobs and competing in markets. Increasingly this government is dividing the state into two Victorias: one living off taxpayer largesse in inner-city corridors and big regional cities, and the other in outer suburbia and rural Victoria running and working in businesses that create wealth for the state. This program also creates very perverse incentives. Victoria’s public sector wages bill is already forecast to jump 21 per cent by 2024, with now 322 000 public servants in the state—an increase of nearly 50 per cent since June 2014. The action I seek is for the Premier to reveal how many vacancies in the public service have been filled by existing public sector employees.