The new NSW Premier said last week that front-line public servants like teachers, nurses and police will be quarantined from staff cuts as his state’s budgetary situation came under closer examination. But as last May’s $300 million surplus evaporates, his new finance minister Michael Costa’s line that it would make no difference if 20% of public servants were sacked, keeps getting repeated.

Which makes it a good time to look at the Crikey Index of Over-Government we wheeled out earlier this year.

In March we wrote: “The really big news from this table is that NSW is incredibly over-governed based on the ratio. It has a population almost 40%, or two million, more than Victoria but a much higher proportion of public servants to population.”

That was then – but this is now:

Full Public Service Pub Servant Population March
2005 		Change State Public Service Only Pub Servant Population March
2005		 Change
ACT 1: 4.274812 ACT 4.246592 0.66% NT 1: 11.66712 NT 11.60359 0.54%
NT 1: 8.561805 NT 8.63626 -0.87% TAS 1: 13.98591 TAS 14.21684 -1.65%
TAS 1: 10.84685 TAS 10.92385 -0.71% WA 1: 15.36316 WA 15.498 -0.88%
WA 1: 12.23732 WA 12.30441 -0.55% SA 1: 15.79388 SA 15.88665 -0.59%
QLD 1: 12.62333 QLD 12.64384 -0.16% QLD 1: 16.38122 QLD 16.4885 -0.65%
SA 1: 12.68877 SA 12.76078 -0.57% ACT 1: 17.92663 ACT 17.82213 0.58%
NSW 1: 14.09199 NSW 14.06446 0.20% NSW 1: 18.35757 NSW 18.21604 0.77%
VIC 1: 14.30399 VIC 14.28708 0.12% VIC 1: 19.47789 VIC 19.62647 -0.76%

The highlighted entries show the states that have increased the ratio of over-government.

Playing with the ABC figures, it looks as if NSW, at a state public service level, has gone from one public servant per 18.35757 persons to one for every 18.21604 in just a few months.

If you recall the last figures, the results are almost ranked in the same order as size of population, with two very notable exceptions – the ACT (enough said) and NSW.

Considering that NSW has almost 40% more people than Victoria, you’d think they would be ranked last. But they have a much higher over-government ratio than Victoria. Is this what Costa was talking about?

The recent figures are based on the March 2005 Public Sector Employee data and the original ones were based on September 2004 data. The population data is based on the 2001 census and the population clock on the ABS website.