The Treasurer has advised Ministers that a Jobs Cap arbitrary figure will now be imposed on Departments.  The Jobs Cap replaces the oxymoron 'SGI' or the downsizing of jobs across the Public Service over the last two years.  The Treasurer's approval is now required of any new departmental program initiative that requires additional resources.  He's so quickly become Treasurys' one trick pony and the tag line now of Departmental lampoonery.  These Caps become effective program cuts and squeeze services.  Department's hold off replacing vacancies just to generate internal cash slush funds.  The Cap is an inefficient and ineffective failed budget tool. 

The Jobs Cap is determined on Departmental employee numbers post the redundancies and cites the reference point being the “historical levels” from the end of the Kennett era for support staff numbers.  

This historical benchmark is the era when tens of thousands of public sector workers lost their jobs solely in the pursuit of a neo liberalist ideological utopia of “small Government”.

Victorians became wise to the fact that it takes people to deliver services and with redundancies services are cut and that endeavour saw the Kennett Government perish at the polls.

Any reference to historically accurate numbers of staff must also be seen in the context of the growth in the Victorian population growth over the same period.

Our population has grown from 4.456 million people (1993) to over 5.6 million by 2013, yet the numbers of people who deliver services on behalf of the Government has dropped from 48,359 to 29,568 over that 20 years.

Victoria has accounted for 22% of Australia’s population growth in the last 20 years.

There are now fewer workers servicing more Victorians.