Frontline services boosted with additional health appointments

The Palaszczuk Government has continued to restore frontline sevices and manage growth with the appointment of 3300 full-time equivalent staff in the first quarter of 2017.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the majority of the appointments - or 2521 FTEs - were in Health, with staff appointed for the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. 

"With the start of the school year, 488 FTEs and 111 FTEs were appointed to Education and Training and for TAFE respectively in the first quarter of the year," the Premier said.

“When Tim Nicholls was Treasurer, 14,000 public servants lost their jobs, including more than 4000 health workers, 500 teachers, and 225 child safety officers."

Ms Palaszczuk said the government had restored nurses, doctors, teachers to the frontline, restoring the cuts of the LNP Nicholls-Newman Government which took an axe to Queensland’s public service.

To restore jobs cut by the LNP and cater for the growing population, the Palaszczuk Government has delivered additional staff, since the 2015 election, including:

• 3170 nurses 
• 1190 doctors 
• 3095 teachers and teacher aides
• 330 police
• 250 ambulance officers, and 
• 205 fire and emergency services 

"Nine out of every 10 positions we have restored are in frontline and frontline support roles right across Queensland," she said.

“Since coming to office, we’ve delivered an additional 49 nurses and 11 doctors to the Torres and Cape region; and Central Queensland Hospitals including Gladstone and Rockhampton have benefited from an additional 114 nurses and 41 doctors.

"We’ve also delivered more teachers to Gladstone (16), Ipswich (40), Warrego (20), and Toowoomba North (33).

“Our commitment to funding the frontline is paying dividends, particularly in health and education. 

“Queensland now has the shortest median waiting time for elective surgery in the country and our $361.2 million Specialist Outpatient Strategy is already delivering on its goal of cutting waiting lists and improving access to specialist services by 2020

“When we came to office, there were 104,000 Queenslanders waiting longer than clinically recommended for a specialist appointment. That number has dropped to 38,000 – a fall of 63%.

“In education, we achieved our best ever NAPLAN results in 2016-17. In fact, compared to 2015 we have improved in 12 out of 20 test areas in our students’ performance in meeting the National Minimum Standard in 2016.

“Over the past year, we have also seen the number of Queensland children in kindergarten stay above an impressive 95 per cent participation rate; and we have almost closed the gap in Year 12 attainment.

“97% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander state school students completed Year 12 with a Qld Certificate of Education or a Qld Certificate of Individual Achievement in 2016, compared to 97.8 per cent for non-Indigenous state school students.

“This clearly shows that in funding the front line, we are reducing the long waits in health and improve educational outcomes for Queensland children.

“By contrast, the LNP's record on government workers was disastrous, and there’s little doubt that given the chance, they will again cut jobs either through freezing recruitment or natural attrition.”

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