Recent commentary about our Tasmanian staffing arrangements is missing context we gave at Senate Estimates on 25 October 2018.
No jobs have been lost. We are engaging a very small number of contractors in Hobart to help with simple back of house administrative tasks. These contractors are additional to our departmental staff, and the tasks they are undertaking do not involve any customer facing work. Their work will not involve any Medicare processing functions or access to Medicare data.
Having assistance from contractors with these simple back of house administrative tasks allows us to better utilise our Hobart service delivery people with more specialised skills. This will give them more time to focus on supporting customers and more complex work.
The tasks these contractors will be assisting with are also expected to reduce over time as systems are improved. The Government is investing a significant amount of money to support the stabilisation and consolidation of health and aged care systems which will help improve the way simple administrative work is done in the future.
