Incumbent Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has this week outlined a potentially grim future for the public sector in her state, expressing an intent to "streamline the business of government" through huge cuts to the state's 23 major departments and 450 agencies.
Bligh confirmed on Thursday that her long-standing plan to undertake large-scale mergers of both major department and minor organisations would be a priority for her first term as elected Premier.
"I have long held the view that 23 agencies, some of them very small with directors-general, were not in the public interest and when I looked at other states what I saw was a much more streamlined, much better set of arrangements and that is what we have delivered," Bligh stated. 
Thursday's announcement comes shortly after Bligh became the nation's first elected female premier in an election featuring jobs and the public sector as a major campaign issue. The Liberal candidate for Premier, Lawrence Springborg, had also advocated public sector efficiency cuts, but had come under fire from Labor over whether public service employment would be cut under his plan.
Bligh has emphatically denied that her razor will be aimed at employee numbers.
"I want to assure all public servants, particularly those on the front-line that I stand by my commitment to jobs, not job cuts and this reform does not mean jobs will be lost."
The newly elected Labor government is expected to begin reform by looking for annual savings of $200 million from Queensland's 450 minor government agencies, which account for $6.2 billion of the government dollar every year. In the firing line are organisations as diverse as the Fibre Composites Forum, the Industrial Hemp Advisory Committee, Queensland's Water Commission, the Babinda Swamp Drainage Board and the Community Consultative Committee for the Control of Exotic Pest Fish.
Bligh's plan allows for 13 central departments, grouped under six ministerial portfolios.
Major departments will be:
- Premier and Cabinet
- Treasury
- Employment and Economic Development
- Infrastructure and Planning
- Transport and Main Roads
- Health
- Environment and Resource Management
- Police
- Public Works
- Education and Training
- Communities
- Justice and Attorney-General
- Community Safety
- Public Works
These departments will be grouped into the following "cluster areas":
- Policy and Fiscal Coordination
- Law, Justice and Safety
- Employment and Economic Development
- Environment and Sustainable Resource Management
- Social Development
- Government Services
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Credit for thumbnail: Wikimedia:Horst.Burkhardt, CC3.0. Body text photo Wikimedia:sardaka, GFDL
