The Liberal Government's commitment to fixing the budget mess and laying the foundations for the future will be supported by a one-year pay pause across the public sector.
Cabinet has also agreed to legislate to limit wage increases across the public sector to two per cent a year once the pay pause is lifted, saving $50 million a year, and until our budget position improves.
This decision will save 500 of the 1,000 job cuts that Labor and the Greens left embedded in the budget.
This is a common measure employed across the private sector, in small business and some of the state's largest employers including Bell Bay Aluminium and Norske Skog.
We have already demonstrated budget discipline with a wage freeze on senior executive salaries, members of parliament, ministerial staff and board fees.
We have also reduced the cost of ministerial transport, merged DEDTA and DIER and implemented strict vacancy control measures to ensure only essential positions are filled.
This is a difficult decision made necessary after the former Labor-Green Government left a $1.1 billion budget black hole, 1,000 job cuts embedded in the budget, rising debt, and rising interest payments.
Labor and the Greens failed to rein in spending; they had a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
Over the three years from the 2011-12 Labor-Green "austerity" budget, revenue forecasts were about right, yet they continued an uncontrollable spending spree of around one billion more than budgeted at the same time.
Today, public sector wages are more than $100 million per year higher than forecast just three years ago, and over the past decade employment costs have grown by more than 80 per cent.
The Liberal Government will deliver a disciplined and measured budget to fix the budget mess left behind by the former government and deliver services within our means.
We will deliver our $400 million in election commitments through $500 million in savings that we identified prior to the election.
We're keeping our promises, cleaning up the mess and laying the foundations for the future.