"You bunch of whingers..."

It was telling that the Tasmanian Treasurer, the Hon. Michael Ferguson, asked us not to be whingers when he delivered the 2024/25 State budget.

To be frank, I never thought I would read the term “whinging” in a Budget speech. It was an interesting turn of phrase when delivering a budget with austerity measures in place to reduce debt.

“Overcoming challenges and adversity with persistence and tenacity is part of the Tasmanian character. Let’s never lose that character. Let’s not become stuck in the malaise of whinging,” he told the House of Assembly.

Let’s unpack what “the malaise of whinging” means.

What Treasurer Ferguson was saying is that even though the decisions are complex or uncomfortable, please don’t complain about them because that’s not the Tasmanian way.

It’s difficult to understand the use of the term, but it was a shot across the bow of those keen to speak up about the cuts to vital services funded by the state.

As the ABC summarised:

“One of the main ways the government is hoping to do that is through $450 million of savings that government departments will be required to make over the next four years; $150 million more than previously announced.

"The existing $300 million dividend was already being fiercely fought by unions, meaning the government will have a tremendous fight on its hands as it makes departments rein in their spending even further.

"In his speech, Mr. Ferguson says the efficiency dividend equates to a saving of 50 cents per $100 of government spending and represents 1.6 per cent of the spending across the forward estimates.”

For a sector such as education, there is already chronic understaffing in public schools and historical underfunding. How cuts or efficiency dividends, as they are described when expressed in a more palatable way, will improve recruitment and retention of teachers and support staff is impossible to understand.

Recent figures from the department have highlighted a rise in psychological injury claims (increases of 32% for teaching staff and 40% for other educators), which are directly related to the staff shortages across the state.

One of the major workload problems driving teachers out of the profession is that there are not enough ‘back-line’ staff doing non-teaching tasks, so these tasks fall on people who would normally spend time on other ‘front-line’ tasks if they weren’t constantly doing administration and additional professional tasks, which should be the responsibility of others.

For a large sector like education, the cuts will come from a reduction in consumables, purchasing, energy savings, and travel, and not from schools or colleges - that also makes little sense.

An already skint department where school and college staff purchase consumables out of their own pockets has no fat. You can’t save millions of dollars in HB pencils.

In an already tight sector $13 million of these cuts have been announced for the 2024/25 Financial Year. They must have already started, yet the community is left none the wiser.

To be fair, some budgets are too bold. For example, announcing the closure of twenty schools across Tasmania without consultation was stupid brave at best. The challenge for governments is to find budget savings in bad times, which they know are always going to be uncomfortable and difficult. Conversely, no government makes budget savings in the good times when they should because it puts at risk their popularity.

But then there are budgets such as the State Budget 2024/25, which could be described as gutless.

Placing the unenviable task of finding the hiked-up savings required at the feet of unelected bureaucrats with little guidance from the Treasurer is not leadership.

Sure, efficiency dividends have always been a key element of departmental savings, but state finances are facing tough economic headwinds as recently identified in a commissioned report, Independent Review of Tasmania’s State Finances, by Saul Eslake, which doesn’t tackle structural change, and is an abdication of responsibility.

The Tasmanian Liberals once ridiculed equating the budget to household expenditure and savings, criticising relentlessly when in opposition about the ridiculousness of comparing unrelatable and complex treasury analysis to that of servicing a mortgage. Fast forward a decade, and it’s the only tactic in their playbook.

To support our key sectors, such as public education, we must quickly understand how to address the funding cuts that are to be implemented or have already started. Budget Estimates next week will tell when the minister must outline the approach to address the impact on educators, staff, and school communities.  

Fighting against cuts to health or education, or child services, is as far from whinging as it gets. It’s our responsibility as community members to ensure that politicians spend our hard-earned money efficiently and effectively, but also to make decisions in our best interests. Department heads, as Treasurer Ferguson suggested, are well paid by the taxpayer, but it is not their job to deliver unrealistic savings targets because our elected leaders have decided not to follow the advice of a report they commissioned.

I acutely understand; political appeasement is not leadership.