The Tasmanian government wants up to 500 public servants to take a voluntary redundancy this year, but an independent MP says there is no money in the budget to actually pay for it.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff confirmed the public-sector-wide redundancy program during a budget estimates hearing in Hobart on Monday.
Staff can register their interest from July 1, with the process running for several months.
The scheme targets up to 500 jobs, with the government saying frontline positions will be protected.
Rockliff said applying would be optional and that not everyone who put their hand up would be let go.
The program forms part of a broader plan to cut the state service by about 1,800 positions by the early 2030s.
A separate restructure of the Department of State Growth has already prompted a wave of redundancy applications.
Independent David O’Byrne wanted to know how it would all be paid for, pointing out the cost lands in a single year.
“There’s nothing in the budget that I can see which allocates money for that,” he said. “How is it going to be funded?”
O’Byrne argued that letting staff leave naturally was a very different thing to funding a wave of redundancy payouts.
“The problem is there’s no transparency around how much this is going to cost,” he said.
Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said each department boss would have to find the money within their own staffing budget.
“Each secretary is required to manage their employee expenditure line,” she said.
Morgan-Wicks said her own department had already shed 82 full-time jobs since March 2025, through natural attrition, retirement payments and redundancies.
She said agencies could shift savings from this year into the next, working with Treasury, and noted departments typically lose between 10% and 20% of staff each year.
The estimates hearings continue this week.
