In response to a question earlier this month from Shadow Finance spokesman, Greg Pearce, Treasurer Roozendaal confirmed that the only analysis done by Treasury to support its advice to Cabinet was an unsigned, undated memo prepared by junior officers.

These revelations come on top of news that the plan for the restructure, which the Premier claimed as the ‘most significant reform to NSW government in 30 years,’ was apparently just a steal from the Queensland Government.

“After criticism from the Federal Government last February that the NSW funding submission to Infrastructure Australia looked like it had been ‘done on the back of an envelope’, lacked critical detail and was ‘so inadequate’ that it the state would be sidelined in funding, one might have expected that the Treasurer’s documentation would improve, but sadly that’s not the case,” Mr Pearce said.

Mr Pearce said Treasury staff not only overstated savings to be achieved by restructuring NSW Government agencies by more than 50% but used wrong assumptions and left out key pieces of information.

 “In some cases, Treasury’s calculations used wrong assumptions to inflate savings figures by double what could be reasonably have been expected,” Mr Pearce said.

”For instance, it was assumed that all ‘employee exits’ occurred on the same day each year (i.e. July 1) – something which clearly doesn’t happen in real life - rather than spreading the accounting of ‘employee exits’ evenly across the Financial Year.

 “Treasurer Roozendaal has been quoted as saying the agency amalgamations were about better services for the people of NSW but the Rees Government’s use of a 2 page, unsigned, undated memo as the sole basis for assessing the financial merits of a massive Departmental reorganisation shows that this Government is just more of the same – more failure, incompetence, waste, spin and excuses.

 “The people of NSW deserve change for the better and Liberal & Nationals are a united, stable team with real-world experience that's ready for action and committed to making real change happen,” Mr Pearce concluded.