Kennett to axe 18,000 more jobs

By Peter Boyle

MELBOURNE -- Victoria's official unemployment rate hit a post-1930s high of 13% in August, yet in its September 7 budget the Kennett government announced plans to get rid of another 18,000 public sector jobs this financial year. This follows 20,000 job cuts last year.

Most of these job cuts will be by voluntary redundancies, swelling the state deficit at the end of this year to a record $3.67 billion. After three years in government Kennett expects to have cut the public sector work force by 21% and have the state accounts running at a surplus.

The budget papers admit that the price of this strategy will be double digit unemployment in the state for at least the next three years.

The only branch of the public sector to increase its numbers will be the police, whose operational numbers will rise by 600 over two years.

Other changes which help the wealthy while hitting the majority of Victorians include:

• A cut of up to 77.5% on public works on hospitals and community care centres over the next four years.

• More state schools will be closed and class sizes increased, but funding to private schools will rise by $4.8 million.

• A plan to privatise Workcover, the state workers' compensation scheme, once it has been made profitable.

• Corporatisation or part-privatisation of many other state enterprises, including the Grain Elevators Board, the TAB, Melbourne Ports.

• A rise in land tax and the end of a long-standing exemption for trade unions.

• Abolition of the $40 levy on four-wheel drive vehicles -- good news for the “Toorak tractor brigade”.

While public transport services will continue to be cut back, the budget allocated $290 million over the next four years to overhaul roads and extend freeways. The Conservation Council of Victoria and local residents groups have waged a decade-long campaign against the extension of the Eastern Freeway, but it will be the major beneficiary of the new spending on roads.

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