NSW Liberal Wastewatch Chairman has further exposed a secret list being held by Morris Iemma's department that reveals hundreds of bureaucratic fat cats with no jobs are costing taxpayers up to $50 million a year. 

"After 12 years of the Carr-Iemma Labor Government the Premier's Department has a secret list of nearly 600 bureaucratic fat cats who don't have a job but continue to receive full pay," Mr Roberts said.

"This comes on top of the 262 registered displaced public servants, taking the yearly cost to taxpayers to nearly $70 million," he said.

$70 million wasted on job-less bureaucrats could fund for one year either:

• 1,340 police officers; or
• 1,590 primary school teachers; or
• 1,550 nurses.

 
The secret list was exposed in answers to NSW Liberal/Nationals questions during Budget Estimate hearings. The secret unregistered displaced list includes 575 backroom bureaucrats costing up to $50 million a year. It's not compulsory for displaced bureaucrats to register on the list – and it emerged only about a third do actually register.

"How many other secret lists are there in the Premier's office?" Mr Roberts asked.

"Morris Iemma promised to make addressing the cost of displaced employees a priority, but under his Premiership it's actually grown. After 12 years, Labor's had long enough to address this bureaucratic waste and mismanagement. The time for excuses is over.

"The NSW community and starved frontline workers deserve better than hundreds of bureaucratic fat cats sitting around with no job still receiving full pay. This is a window into the bureaucratic mismanagement in this state.

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"It's alarming the government department with the highest number of fat cats with no job are the NSW Area Health Services. While one third of patients in emergency departments aren't seen on time, there's 118 fat cat bureaucrats sitting around on full pay doing nothing.
 
"Our hospitals could certainly do with another 118 nurses. Our schools could do with another 65 teachers, and TAFE could use another 57 lecturers. This is why we need to swap resources from the backroom bureaucratic fats cats to starved frontline services," Mr Roberts said.