❓ Dr. Thomas questions the cost of converting contract workers to permanent positions in the WA public sector. The government defends the move, highlighting increased frontline staff and criticising the previous government's handling of public sector employment.
AnsweredQoN 441Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
I refer to the State of the Western Australia Sector Workforce 2021-21 Report released 18 November 2021 that showed that salaries comprised $13.5 billion, or 39 percent of general Government expenses and grew at 4.5 percent last year, and I ask, of the 15,500 employees converted to permanency, what was the average level and salary of those contracts?
AnswerView source ↗
Answered
15 February 2022
Responded by
Leader of the House representing the Minister for Public Sector Management
Response time
9 days
The growth in FTE has been in frontline services, with almost 80% of the growth from Health and Education alone.
We make no apologies for hiring more nurses, doctors, teachers, and teaching assistants; unlike the Leader of the WA Liberal Party who states he would cut jobs from the public sector.
Under the previous Liberal National Government, FTE reported in the Budget increased by 13,314 from 97,348 to 110,662. This is despite five rounds of voluntary separations at a cost of $393 million.
The State Government has provided certainty to thousands of workers and their families by providing permanent employment, rather than contract or temporary employment, as was the case under the previous Liberal National Government.
The conversion of casual employees to permanency has occurred for over four years. To calculate the average level and salary of each employee would require each department and agency to manually prepare the information for each employee.
Manually preparing this information would require considerable time and is not considered a reasonable or responsible use Government resources.
We make no apologies for hiring more nurses, doctors, teachers, and teaching assistants; unlike the Leader of the WA Liberal Party who states he would cut jobs from the public sector.
Under the previous Liberal National Government, FTE reported in the Budget increased by 13,314 from 97,348 to 110,662. This is despite five rounds of voluntary separations at a cost of $393 million.
The State Government has provided certainty to thousands of workers and their families by providing permanent employment, rather than contract or temporary employment, as was the case under the previous Liberal National Government.
The conversion of casual employees to permanency has occurred for over four years. To calculate the average level and salary of each employee would require each department and agency to manually prepare the information for each employee.
Manually preparing this information would require considerable time and is not considered a reasonable or responsible use Government resources.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.