Minister says Coalition copying current US approach to public service won't work in Australia

The Federal Government has hit back at Coalition plans to force public servants to work in the office five days a week, saying US-style policies don’t apply in Australia.

Finance and Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher suggested the Opposition was trying to copy the Trump Administration’s approach to the public sector, even though there is a completely different system here.

She also questioned anecdotal evidence shadow finance minister Jane Hume cited during a speech to the Menzies Research Centre this week.

Senator Hume said a Peter Dutton-led government would take away public servants’ “blank cheque” to work from home.

All members of the Australian Public Service would be required to work from the office five days a week under a Coalition government.

Senator Hume suggested that the current arrangements, which form part of the APS’s enterprise agreement, are being rorted.

“One public servant told my office that one of their colleagues worked from home five days a week. They were frequently uncontactable and thus unreliable,” Senator Hume said in her speech.

“Why? Because while they were working, they were also traveling around Australia with their family in a campervan.”

But Senator Gallagher has questioned the veracity of that allegation.

“I did notice that there was an anecdotal description of someone who called the office to say this was happening to someone they knew,” she said.

“So, I would say, if there is evidence of that particular scenario, she should be at least providing it to me because there are arrangements in place that would ensure that that behaviour is not acceptable, and those have existed under governments of all persuasions.

“But let’s just say that that particular cameo was pretty light on detail … you know, someone rings an office and says something, therefore, it’s a fact.”

In a subsequent media appearance, Senator Gallagher said the Coalition was trying to mimic what was happening in America in an effort to win votes in Australia.

US President Donald Trump has begun a mass sacking process in the federal bureaucracy and is ordering all remaining public sector workers back to the office full time.

“For a start, I think we should have policies for Australia that work for Australians, and I think copying policies from another country, in particular the United States, isn’t really applicable or shouldn’t be applicable here,” Senator Gallagher said.

“We should have a contest over what policies are right for us. We know that working from home arrangements are a part of modern workplaces.

“It’s allowed the public service to employ people from outside Canberra for people in regional and rural towns who probably never thought they could work for the public service, have been able to do so, and we know that for modern families or for working families in the modern era, working from home arrangements helped them balance a whole range of other priorities.

“I’ve asked for a review of the working from home arrangements by the Public Service Commission a couple of months ago, just to make sure that we are keeping an eye on how it’s working across the APS if there are any challenges with it, but also what are the benefits that come with it.

“The anecdotal feedback from managers to me is that it’s working well. It’s allowing agencies to recruit and retain people and that all operational needs are being met.”

Senator Hume referred to “plenty of studies out there” demonstrating that working from home “actually decreases productivity rather than increases productivity”.

“A recent report from Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research consolidated research on working from home and its impact on productivity,” she said in her speech on Monday.

“One paper in the report found that regardless of perceptions for employees and employers about their own productivity, in reality, these arrangements led to a reduction in productivity, with the worst being fully remote workers.

“One paper found that after work from home arrangements were put in place, productivity fell by about 20 per cent.”

Senator Gallagher hit back at those Coalition claims too.

“I don’t think it’ll surprise your listeners to know that I don’t agree with Senator Hume or the comments she’s made,” the Minister said.

“And I don’t even know if she agrees with them, either, considering the report she cited in defence of an argument of productivity actually said, if you read it, that hybrid arrangements between the workplace and home actually improve productivity.

“So I think really this has been an announcement seeking a headline rather than anything substantive, based on any evidence.”