The Canberra Times | 6 August 2013

Budget cuts don’t equal productivity…death by 1000 cuts illustration

Public sector union halts Labor support, Ross Peake reports.

As the government plans to cut another $1.8 billion from the public service budget the public sector union will continue to suspend its support for the ALP’s election campaign. CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood is calling for better policy from the ALP to support a public sector already under stress “you only have to walk into a Centrelink office to know the queues are already long enough”.

CPD research director Christopher Stone’s new report Death by a thousand cuts: How governments undermine their own productivity with co-author Kathy MacDermott, examines how productive budget cuts really are. They argue that “blind, across-the-board cuts” hurt our ability to meet rising expectations of public services.

“The authors examine recent cuts in the federal and West Australian public sectors, and highlight what they say are long-term problems resulting for the Commonwealth, WA, and other states and territories.”

Read the article at The Canberra Times

Check out the full report Death by a thousand cuts

 

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