The Liberal Government will not be deterred from fixing the Budget mess.
The Budget bottom line is not negotiable and today's recommendations from the Tasmanian Industrial Commission do not deliver the structural savings required in the Budget.
Let's be clear about what the proposal is – a 12 month freeze with increments kept in as normal, and only on the condition no further job losses are made.
We are awaiting Treasury modelling on the exact saving but preliminary estimates leave around a $70 million hole in the Budget and over the forward estimates which would still require an additional reduction of 200 FTEs to provide the structural savings needed.
As a consequence, we will not be accepting this recommendation.
As we've made clear numerous times over the past weeks, anything which delivers less than $50 million in savings over a full year would require further savings by reducing FTE numbers to maintain the integrity of the Budget.
The Liberal Government is now getting on with the job of fixing the Budget mess so we can deliver essential services into the future and we will not be deterred from this task.