Queensland Premier Campbell Newman. Credit:Harrison Saragossi/File photo “We've taken the staffing level of the Queensland public service down by 14,000 that's our establishment reduction,” he said. “That is our cut to the public sector and what we do from now on is we start to test some of these things. “So I'm not prepared to go into what it means, “I'm saying 'those were the cuts' because we had to try and deal with the recurring costs. But what we're doing now is a structured and careful way of looking at what services government does in house.”

TRANSCRIPT OF ANSWER

MEDIA CLUB SPEECH Previously, Mr Newman and treasurer Tim Nicholls had stated about one-third of the 200,000 strong public service will leave the sector over the next five years through natural attrition. The full Commission of Audit handed down at the end of last month recommended outsourcing many government services, particularly those in information and communication technology, health and disability services. The government accepted many of those recommendations but is yet to answer what will happen to people working in those sectors. A small insight was provided on Tuesday, with Mr Newman using the government's Accommodation Support and Respite Services as an example.

“There's a whole number of government employees there,” Mr Newman said. “Some of them do want to retire. They do. Because it's actually an older workforce. So what we'll be doing is going through a process where great NGOs out there - people like the Endeavour Foundation, Multi Capital (Holdings) ...will be able through EOI tender process essentially look at taking over responsibilities of AS&RS...so looking after all their clients, their families, making sure the proper transition and that means in my view that either people retire or as AS&RS is now they go and start working for one of those NGOs... “So as much as we possibly can we will be trying to get everybody to go across and work for the NGO and that's the pathway.” Mr Newman had been asked a question on job losses arising from the commission of audit recommendations during question time on May 2 and similarly danced around giving a concrete answer.

Mr Newman used his answer time to attack the Labor party's history of privatisation. When discussing the government's response to the audit report, treasurer Tim Nicholls also could not say if more job cuts were on the horizon. He spoke about the natural attrition rate and said the public sector could not continue to increase in size “because that just means more and more of the problems we face now [like] an unsustainable deficit”. Loading "Hard actions needed to be taken,” Mr Nicholls said.

The state budget is due to be handed down next month.