After recently farewelling Ford manufacturing jobs, Geelong could be looking toward a brighter future thanks to its ever-growing legion of public servants.
After all, faux-angry Liberals this week citied an Andrews government report indicating that fat-cat numbers would continue ballooning at a rate similar to their wages.
The Libs, whose MPs, it should be noted, are also on pretty generous taxpayer moola, pointed out that Victoria now has almost 2000 executive officers on the public teat.
And, according to the report, they’re set for a 14.7 per cent hike in “base-range” salary from $152,560 to $175,000, topping out at an “indicative” maximum of $432,000.
The report also recommended removing a cap on senior bureaucrat numbers and paying their secretaries more.
The Libs suggested all this was a bad thing, and many battling taxpayers would agree.
But now consider that Geelong’s largest employers are all now public bodies: Barwon Health, the education department, City Hall et al.
Twenty years ago this list was all Ford, Alcoa, Shell and others.
And to the pending blizzard of bureaucrats with even more money to spend, please accept this warm invitation to the future opening of Double Take’s ivory backscratcher boutique.
And what’s with the Cats’ trade of Josh Caddy to Richmond?
The Tigers are now his third club, after Gold Coast and Geelong.
A caddie passes the clubs but in this case the clubs are passing the Caddy.
