The cash-strapped WA government's public service restructure has led to 33 of the most senior and highly paid public servants quitting, prompting a warning the cuts have gone too far and will damage the state.
The government has begun the process of slashing the number of WA departments from 41 to 25, leaving disgruntled senior public servants with decades of experience to depart voluntarily or be axed.
Tourism WA's chief executive Gwyn Dolphin left last Friday ahead of the agency being merged with other departments.
Premier Mark McGowan criticised the previous government's handling of tourism before being elected in March and identified it as a key sector to make up for the decline in mining.
Some of the others to go, without details being released about their taxpayer-funded payouts, include Road Safety Commissioner Kim Papalia, the brother of government minister Paul Papalia; Department of Child Protection director-general Emma White; and Disability Services Commission director-general Ron Chalmers.
Mr McGowan said last week there was a strong group of people coming through the public sector to take over the roles that people were vacating.
The government is running multiple reviews ahead of a public service restructure that it says will gut $750 million in costs over four years.
But public servants and unions are worried about thousands of job losses.
Opposition Leader Mike Nahan says they should be completing the reviews first before making "wholesale sackings and departures from the senior public service".
"This is chaotic, the public sector needs the best people," he said on Monday.
"It does need reform ... but it needs to go through it in a systematic manner to make sure that you have the best people and the best structures, not this chaotic process we have under way currently.
"People are just sitting there looking at their navels worrying if their job is next rather than getting on with the task of delivering services to the West Australian public and undertaking reform that is very much needed."
Many departing department heads are still being paid, he said, questioning the government's claim it was about saving money and not political interference in a public service that is supposed to be independent.
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