The opposition has walked back its vow to slash tens of thousands of federal government jobs, suggesting a Dutton government, if elected, will make the bureaucracy more efficient through “natural attrition”.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said on Monday “hardly any” public service jobs will be on the chopping block if the Coalition were to win at the polls, in a significant backdown on comments in 2024 promising to dump as many as 36,000 public servants.
“The Nationals have made it clear that we will get rid of those in Canberra. There will be 36,000 public servants that will go. We don’t need more public servants,” he told 6PR radio in August.
The opposition’s singling out of public service spending mirrors that of US president Donald Trump, who is waging a war on government inefficiency.
“We’re not gonna have to cut hardly any of them, but we will be looking and prioritising where those public servants are, and we will be making sure that we get the right balance,” Littleproud said.
“We’ve been very clear – the 36,000 new public servants that they budgeted for – we can’t see where you’re going to need them, and they haven’t been [employed], in theory. So we’re not cutting anybody’s job.”
Since the Coalition’s 2022-23 budget in March, the average staffing level for the public service has risen by about 36,000 roles, most notably in frontline services, such as the National Disability Insurance Agency, Services Australia, the defence and health departments.
However, the actual number of employed public servants does not necessarily line up with the average staffing level – it is the forecast figure used by the government to determine how many are needed to deliver the budget measures.
The staffing level, which is forecast to exceed 200,000 this financial year, is in the opposition’s crosshairs as it tries to paint Labor’s increases as economically wasteful.
On Monday afternoon, the shadow public service minister, Jane Hume, agreed natural attrition of public service roles would be “not far off” the opposition’s planned reduction.
Earlier, Hume could not say how many roles she wanted gone but said “frontline” and “essential” services would be safe.
“What we will do is deliver an effective and an efficient public service, because that’s what Australians expect,” she said.
“If you don’t think that there is fat in the public service, you’re not looking very hard.”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has committed to “not having 36,000 additional public servants in Canberra” but will not say how many or from where they be will cut.
Dutton said he would reveal details of the plan in “due course”.
While many of the bureaucracy’s policy and administration roles are based in Canberra, more than 90% of frontline and service delivery roles are outside the nation’s capital.
About two-thirds of the 36,000 planned roles are based outside Canberra, the office of public service minister, Katy Gallagher, said.
Gallagher said the proposed cuts would see a return to contractors and consultants “running the show” with frontline services.
“Peter Dutton likes to stomp around the country and say he’ll cut 36,000 jobs from Canberra,” she told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
“The reality is, if he does that, it’s people out in the regions and other places right around the country who will suffer.”
Article by:Source: Sarah Basford Canales and Josh Butler
