Queensland's public sector will be capped and the use of consultants cut back as the state government looks to salvage billions from its bottom line.
New Treasurer Cameron Dick plans to save $3 billion over four years by ensuring the public service doesn't swell any further than it already has.
"By maintaining the number of public servants we have, we're not growing the public service, we're not adding to the expenditure of the state," Mr Dick said.
The government will cut back on marketing and advertising, and shut down social media accounts that don't have large followings, shifting staff that run them to other jobs.
It will impose a 12-month hiring freeze on positions that are not within frontline services and fill department vacancies internally.
Some senior executive positions that become vacant will not be filled to reduce the number of highly paid bureaucrats.
The government will also wind up duplicated programs and redirect public workers to creating jobs with the private sector, building infrastructure projects and supporting schools, hospitals and police.
Other savings will come as external consultants and contractors either lose government work, or get less of it.
"If there's a public servant who can do a job, the public servant should do it," Mr Dick added.
"That's what Queenslanders expect from them, we don't need to contract additional workforces to come in and do that."
A chunk of the public service will also be forced out of the Brisbane CBD where the government has under-utilised and expensive office space.
Mr Dick says coronavirus has shown not all public servants need to be in city offices that could otherwise be leased to the private sector.
He says some will continue to work from home, while up to 1500 will be told to work at distributed work centres within their communities, like those already in operation on the Gold and Sunshine coasts.
"We're just not going to keep doing things because we've done them before," Mr Dick said.
"We expect to have internal discipline in the public sector to find those savings that we redirect to jobs, infrastructure and frontline services."
State debt was forecast in December to hit $91.8 billion within four years.
Mr Dick would not say if the state government would borrow $7 billion to cover $6 billion in spending to respond to COVID-19 plus a $1 billion write down on taxes and revenue.
That will be revealed in September.
"All states, all governments, will have to borrow and will have to run deficits in the short term," Mr Dick added.
"That's critically important."
The Liberal National Party said some of the government's plans were absurd.
"It's absolutely laughable when you're talking about getting $3 billion worth of savings and your examples are deleting social media accounts," deputy LNP leader Tim Mander said.
The public service has swelled by more than 28,000 full-time equivalent positions since Labor was elected in 2015, after the former LNP government axed 14,000 public service jobs.
Mr Dick earlier told The Australian he could save $3 billion over four years without having to sack public servants, reduce frontline services or sell public assets.
The current size of the public service is not clear as the latest data has not been released.
The government has blamed coronavirus for its decision not to deliver a full budget before the October 31 state election.
Australian Associated Press
